Browse Sections

• Education
• Special reports

‘I lost leg after docs ignored me’

by Helen Johnson
15/ 7/2008

DOCTORS at a local hospital are being blamed for an 80-year-old having to have his leg amputated.

Relatives of Tom Talks, a man who has raised thousands of pounds for charity, have made an official complaint to the Pennine Acute Trust.

It is being claimed that after breaking his ankle in a fall in May, Mr Talks, of Swallow Drive, Bamford, had his right leg put in plaster at Fairfield General Hospital.

Almost immediately he felt the cast was too tight and experienced severe pain and swelling. He returned to Fairfield every day for a week, pleading for them to loosen the cast. His family say each time he was sent home and told to take stronger painkillers.

On his last visit to Fairfield on 2 June, doctors agreed to cut down the side of the plaster to release the pressure, but wouldn’t remove the plaster stocking underneath, they say. Two days later, during a routine visit to his doctor at the Ashworth Street Surgery, Mr Talks collapsed. Two doctors immediately realised gangrene had set in and called an ambulance to take Mr Talks to Rochdale Infirmary.

He was then transferred to North Manchester General Hospital, where his right leg was amputated above the knee the next day.

The night before the operation, Mr Talks suffered a heart attack and has since also experienced renal failure. Now he is slowly recovering in North Manchester and his grandson, Karl Sanderson, has made an official complaint to hospital bosses.

Mr Sanderson said: "This is the 21st century, we should not be in a situation where someone might die because they fracture their ankle.We need to know the full facts and find out what went wrong."

Mr Talks said: "Every day for a week I begged them to release the pressure. It felt like my leg was trying to burst out of its skin. When the surgeon asked me for my permission to amputate my leg, he told me I was very lucky to be alive. He said by the day after I would have been a dead man. I looked at my wife and I knew she couldn’t cope with losing me, so I told him to amputate my leg. I’m not angry about what happened, that only leads to bitterness, but I want them to find out what went wrong so this doesn’t happen to another patient. All I care about now is my wife’s wellbeing and getting mobile again."

Mr Talks takes part in the Rochdale Round Table Water Walk every year and over the years has raised thousands of pounds for good causes, including for Rochdale Infirmary cardiac unit, which treated his 84-year-old wife Hellentraut several years ago.

A spokesman for Pennine Acute Trust said: "We can confirm that a complaint has been received from the family of Mr Talks. As this matter is now part of the formal complaints process, we cannot comment further at this stage."

Most recent 2 of 2 user comments