India-born American doctor Jayant Patel was not at fault when a patient died of internal bleeding as he tried his best to stop the blood loss, a witness told an Australian court on Monday.
"There was blood and blood clots everywhere... all over the linen. There were visible footprints all over the floor.
(Patel) was visibly agitated, he kept on saying, 'This isn't my fault - it's nothing to do with the surgery that I performed this morning'," nurse Janelle Law said before the Brisbane Supreme Court.
Patel did oesophagectomy of Gerry Kemps, who continued to bleed on operating table and subsequently died at Bundaberg Base Hospital in December 2004.
Patel asked the theatre staff to contact the family after he realised that Kemps was going to die, she added according to an AAP report.
The court was informed that the incident happen within a few hours when Patel told Kemps' wife Judy and son Bernard that the oesophagectomy had been a "great success", the report says.
Kemps' wife said when she got to the hospital, Patel took her aside and said her husband had to be taken back into the theatre to stop some internal bleeding.
He advised her and her son to go and have some dinner for an hour while he fixed the problem, the news report said.
Bernard told the court they were called back less than 30 minutes later to be told his father was going to die.
"(Patel) said that he'd opened up Dad and taken out his spleen... and said he couldn't find out where the bleeding was coming from and there was nothing he could do. He said he didn't think he would live through the night, and said he
would probably die from loss of blood."
Meanwhile, Registered nurse Hazel Evans said she questioned Patel's decision to operate. "I said 'Why did you bother operating on him? That man looked fairly healthy to me and he could have had a couple more years with his wife and
now he's dead'."
Evans blamed that Patel had a "very uncaring look about" Kemp and said people do not "usually survive that surgery".
The 60-year-old doctor has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Kemps and of two other patients.
He also pleaded not guilty to the grievous bodily harm to another man.