Duntsch continued to medicate Morguloff with prescription pain killers and ignored the change in his condition. He secured investments in Discgenics from local spine surgeons, including Dr. Robertson and Dr. Kevin Foley, a prominent Memphis neurosurgeon Duntsch spent a year training under as part of the surgery fellowship at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic. Mayfield was taken to a different hospital and told his spinal cord had already been deformed, and the damage was irreversible. Those words continue to haunt her, and she's tormented by the knowledge that her endorsement caused others to select Duntsch themselves. Legacy Surgery Center in Frisco (now Frisco Ambulatory Surgery Center). Summers had a credit card in his name connected to Duntsch's account and would drive him around, balance his checkbooks, and pick up his dry cleaning. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! He will not be eligible for parole until 2045, when he will be 74-years-old. Soon afterward, he severely maimed Jeff Glidewell after mistaking part of his neck muscle for a tumor during a routine cervical fusion, severing one of his vocal cords, cutting a hole in his esophagus and slicing an artery. Just one day after his suspension had ended, Duntsch operated on Kellie Martin. Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. She came in to have two vertebrae fused, but when she woke up she experienced severe pain and couldnt stand. Due to the debilitating pain, Fennell later had a second operation by Duntsch to relieve it, and was left significantly paralyzed in his legs. At one point, an assisting surgeon named Dr. Hoyle observed Duntsch performing such alarming and erratic behavior; he grabbed his hands and pleaded with him to stop. "He said the patient died from having an allergic reaction to the anesthesia." Ghostbar, Dragonfly at Hotel Zaza. Duntsch stuffed a surgical sponge in Glidewell's throat to stanch the bleeding. Duntsch's next patient was Jeff Glidewell. After his license was revoked,Duntsch fled from Texas. He realized he'd seen that hole for three straight days Duntsch hadn't changed his scrubs all week. [9] Texas Medical Board Revocation Order. Duntsch focused on his research for a while but was recruited from Memphis to join the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute in North Dallas in the summer of 2011. She witnessed Duntsch put on his lab coat and make his rounds the following morning as if nothing had happened. He didn't contact a lawyer, although he struggled with the decision. Duntsch received his undergraduate degree from the University of Memphis and stayed in town to receive an M.D. [4], After 13 days of trial, the jury needed only four hours to convict him for the maiming of Efurd. Young had family in Dallas and decided she would go with him if he picked that city. Former teammates later said that, while Duntsch trained hard, he lacked talent at the game. As Burke says in "Dr. Death," "No matter what happens, no matter what somebody does to you or the people you love, all you're gonna get is $250,000. But police say an email Duntsch wrote in 2011 points to his mind-set in the months before he "intentionally, knowingly and . When he woke, he could not move anything on the right side of his body. The hospital hired him and granted him temporary surgical privileges until his reference checks were completed. [16][24] Henderson described Duntsch's surgery as an "assault", and concluded that Efurd would have been bedridden had the salvage surgery not been performed. However, on January 6, 2012, a week after the surgery, Dr. Duntsch performed another operation on Passmore. Duntsch initially attended Millsaps College to play Division III college football, and later transferred to Division I Colorado State University. [9], In March 2014, three former patients of Duntsch's Mary Efurd, Kenneth Fennel, and Lee Passmore filed separate federal lawsuits against Baylor Plano, alleging the hospital allowed Duntsch to perform surgeries despite knowing that he was a dangerous physician. During surgery, Duntsch damaged Summers' vertebral artery causing it to bleed uncontrollably. At the time of their meeting, Young was working as a dancer in a strip club. It was then that Christopher decided to switch his career to medicine. Prosecutors put a high priority on that charge, as it provided the widest sentencing range, with Duntsch facing up to life in prison if convicted. However, Mayfield still woke up with paralysis on occasion. A deranged surgeon runs amok, maiming and killing multiple patients, unhindered by a medical community sworn to police itself. An investigator by trade and nature, Passmore started digging into Dr. Christopher Duntsch. [4], Longtime spine surgeon Robert Henderson performed the salvage surgery on Efurd. When Henderson saw the imaging from Duntsch's surgery, he was certain that there would be legal action, and had the salvage surgery recorded. Philip Mayfield, one of Christopher Duntschs patients, who was paralyzed after his surgery. He thought surgery might give him some relief and stop his need for drugs. He thought it was odd that Duntsch wasn't working at Baylor Plano anymore, so he called his insurance company, who stated Christopher Duntsch was in good standing. On November 7, 2011, Dr. Duntsch was scheduled to perform his first surgery at Baylor Plano on Kenneth Fennell for his back pain. Dubbed "Dr. Death," the case gained national attention, revealing Kirby arrived and transferred Glidewell to a top-tier hospital to perform an emergency operation to remove the sponge. An MRI revealed that multiple bone fragments in his spinal canal were compressing and adhering to his S1 nerve and that Duntsch had installed the hardware incorrectly. They created a method for culturing the stem cells of intervertebral discs outside of the body. He proved to be Duntsch's last surgery; University General pushed him out soon afterward. Where is Christopher Duntsch AKA Dr. Death now? The problem was that Dallas Medical Center did not perform those or even have the proper equipment to do them. In December 2012, Jacqueline Troy was left barely able to speak above a whisper after Duntsch cut her vocal cords and one of her arteries. By this time, Jerry Summers, his childhood friend, had moved from Tennessee to live with Duntsch. Under heavy lobbying from Kirby and Henderson, the Texas Medical Board suspended Duntsch's license on June 26, 2013. Baylor wanted Duntsch operating quickly and often so they could be reimbursed for the monies they had advanced to him. [19] Prosecutors sought a sentence long enough to ensure that Duntsch would never be able to practice medicine again. He recommended fusing two of her vertebrae and the insertion of "hardware" in her spinal area. Fennell is in constant pain, and it took several months of rehabilitation before he could begin to walk with a cane. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! She was transferred to a Dallas hospital after suffering from a severe infection, and Randal Kirby was asked to operate on her. He is not eligible for parole until 2045, when he will be 74 years old. Not only was he not qualified for and held no privileges to perform brain surgery, but Dallas Medical did not have the proper equipment or personnel for such an operation. [15], Duntsch joined Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano (now Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Plano) as a minimally invasive spine surgeon with a salary of $600,000 per year, plus bonuses. Donald Duntsch was a gridiron football standout in Montana, and Christopher was determined to follow in those footsteps. Death,' Dallas neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch", "Texas neurosurgeon nicknamed 'Dr. Christopher Duntsch was a neurosurgeon who radiated confidence. Your trust is important to us. During this time, he ran two successful labs and raised millions of dollars in grant funding. The show starsJoshua Jackson,Grace Gummer, AnnaSophia Robb,Christian SlaterandAlec Baldwin. Prosecutors sought a sentence long enough to ensure that Duntsch would never be able to practice medicine again. by Saul Elbein. Death'? Lee Passmore's screams poured out from the ICU and down the hallway. Since receiving his life sentence, Dr Death is currently housed in the O.B. Trusty was never told she was participating in an infomercial and believed Duntsch had been selected as the top neurosurgeon in Dallas and was participating in a video about the award. [9][10], Duntsch had severed Brown's vertebral artery, and refused to abort despite the massive blood loss. He might have been fired from the Institute but was still a surgeon at Baylor Plano. In one particularly disturbing episode, in March 2015, she said she arrived home to her front door had been locked with a deadbolt from the inside. Three holes had been poked into Efurd's spinal column where Duntsch had tried and failed to insert screws. His resume looked brilliant on paper," journalistMatt Goodman said of Christopher Duntsch's ability to continue to gain employment at Texas hospitals despite a deadly track record. After several more months of botched surgeries, Duntsch finally lost his surgical privileges altogether in June 2013 after two physicians complained to the Texas Medical Board. He was a genius. The Peacock limited series, based on the Wondery podcast, covers the true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (played by Joshua Jackson ), whose surgical career ruined the lives of numerous people . Dr. Frederick Boop, chief of neurosurgery at the hospital where Duntsch was completing his residency, said that university officials asked Duntsch to take a drug test. When other doctors discovered the sponge, Duntsch refused to return to help remove it. Even worse, some of the patients never got the chance to wake up. The lead investigator on the case later revealed that she wanted Duntsch's license suspended while the ten-month probe was underway, but board attorneys were not willing to go along. Their fling was confined to his office at Baylor Plano, and Morgan said in her deposition that he frequently drank vodka and did medical research for hours. Peacock's Dr. Death is a chilling dramatization of the real-life story of former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch. That same month, the two began an affair. For instance, he upbraided him for missing the signs that Martin was bleeding out, saying that, "You can't not know [that] and be a neurosurgeon. Her husband could not hold himself up; he had no support of his own and could barely speak. While they were in the lab working, Duntsch went to work raising money for a company he called DiscGenics. [37][4], Over objections from Duntsch's lawyers, prosecutors called many of Duntsch's other patients to the stand in order to prove that his actions were intentional. He was smart. This was the time when Dr. Christopher Duntsch started to turn into Dr. Death. Floella Brown went under Dr. Deaths knife in July 2012 and shortly after her surgery, she suffered a massive stroke caused by Duntsch slicing her vertebral artery during surgery. Duntsch arrived at the hospital about 45 minutes after Efurd's surgery had been scheduled. All the while, the operating room staff questioned whether Duntsch was putting hardware into Efurd in the right places and noticed he kept drilling and removing screws. [4][5] In 2017, he was convicted of maiming one of his patients and sentenced to life imprisonment. Death. There are many sick people in the world, but Duntsch takes the cake for me. Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971. He was arrested for DUI in Denver, taken for a psychiatric evaluation in Dallas during one of his visits to see his children, and was arrested in Dallas for shoplifting. She was dancing at a strip club in Memphis, and Duntsch's issues with his business, DiscGenics, grew more severe. Around this time, Christopher Duntsch's behavior became noticeably erratic. [13] In 2010, Duntsch moved to Dallas. In September 2012, Jeff Cheney went to Duntsch to relieve the pain that had moved from his shoulder down to his arm. In addition, a ligament in his leg was severed, and a screw was stripped and lodged into a nerve bundle.