77-year-old dies during heart surgery after hospital loses power

A 77-year-old British woman died during heart surgery when the hospital lost power for 10 minutes — and even the backup generator failed during the procedure.

Jean Dye was undergoing a procedure for cardiac disease at Scunthorpe General Hospital in Scunthorpe, England, on Sept. 7, 2024, when the outage occurred in the middle of the surgery, the BBC reported this week, citing results from a newly released coroner’s inquest.

Doctors were about to place cardiac stents in Dye’s arteries when the loss of power left surgeons with “limited opportunity to provide the necessary remedial treatment,” the inquest stated.

The Emergency Power Off circuit was activated during the blackout, which overrode the back-up electrical supply, the report found.

Surgeons were left in the dark as to the cause of the outage and were forced to wait for an engineer to reset the circuit during the critical operating juncture, according to the report.

After 10 long minutes in the dark operating room, Dye died as a result of an “iatrogenic dissection,” which is a tear involving an artery that occurs during a medical procedure, a coroner’s report concluded.

“The delay whilst power was restored was a critical factor in this death,” the coroner said according to the BBC.

No cause of the power outage has been identified, according to the report.

“Had staff been aware of the exact cause of the loss of power on this occasion and had they had the opportunity to rest the circuit without the need to await the arrival of an engineer, who in turn had to attend a separate plant room, the downtime would likely have been significantly reduced,” senior coroner Paul Smith said in comment to the outlet.