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Doctor performs amputation via text instructions

By Carla Bevan on Wednesday 3 December 2008

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David Nott, World news, Marie Claire

A British doctor working with Medecins Sans Frontieres in the Congo has performed a life-saving operation with only texted instructions from colleagues back in the UK.

David Nott, who usually works as a vascular surgeon in London, came across the 16-year-old victim while volunteering in war-torn Rutshuru.

Despite never having performed the amputation necessary to try and save his life, he contacted another surgeon back in the UK - professor Meirion Thomas from the Royal Marsden Hospital - and asked him to provide as many instructions as he could via text message.

'I texted him and he texted back step by step instructions on how to do it,' Nott tells the BBC's Today programme.

Although the boy claimed to have been bitten by a hippopotamus, it was later confirmed he'd been injured during civil war crossfire.

'He was dying,' explains Nott. 'He had about two or three days to live when I saw him.' Although the operation, which is only performed about 10 times a year in the UK, usually needs the back up of a full intensive care unit, Nott decided to go ahead with just the support of his mobile phone.

'I had to think long and hard about whether it was right to leave a young boy with only one arm in the middle of this fighting,' he says.

'But in the end he would have died without it so I took a deep breath and followed the instructions to the letter.

'I knew exactly what my colleague meant because we have operated together many times.'

Despite the odds, the operation was a huge success. Says Nott: 'That is why I volunteer myself so often, I love being able to save someone's life.'

LISTEN TO NOTT'S INTERVIEW HERE