Heart patient died after operation to remove wire

Mary Knight, of Hastings Road, had a temporary pacemaker fitted following a diagnosis that her heart was failing - but when it was removed she went into cardiac arrest.

An inquest into her death held at Hastings Magistrates’ Court heard how consultant Eric McWilliams and other senior staff worked to save her life following the discovery that she had sick sinus syndrome, which meant her heart rate was slowing down, and even stopping for seconds at a time because of irregular electrical impulse.

She felt nauseous and unwell during these episodes and collapsed again at the hospital later that evening of Saturday June 5.

She lost consciousness briefly but responded when nursing staff carried out cardiac massage.

A temporary pace wire which had been fitted to see her through the weekend was found not to be working.

When it was taken out of her heart, she had bleeding in the right ventricle which proved fatal.

She died the next morning.

Mrs Knight’s family attended the hearing and put questions to Dr McWilliams about procedure and treatment leading up to her death.

He said that 300 pacemakers are fitted every year at the Conquest but that he had never encountered cardiac tamponade before - build-up of fluid in the pericardial sac - although he knew of the risk, and thought the condition could have been caused by the pace wire piercing the inner wall of the right ventricle.

Coroner Alan Craze then returned a written narrative having decided neither death by natural cause or accident was appropriate as a verdict.

He commented: “I cannot identify anything as a mistake or which has clearly gone wrong.

“That is not the same as saying there are no risks with any invasive procedure – of course there are.

“I accept the evidence that tamponade exists – it is very rare, but it still exists.

“There must be risks associated with it. But of course the risk of not doing anything is an obvious one – the patient will die.”