A 70-year-old British woman tragically passed away during a cardiac surgery due to a power failure at the hospital where the operation was taking place. The incident happened at Scunthorpe General Hospital in Scunthorpe, England, on September 7, 2024. The power outage lasted for a critical 10 minutes, during which the backup generator also failed to operate.
The woman, identified as Jean Dye, was undergoing a surgical procedure to treat her heart disease when the power cut occurred. The medical team was in the midst of placing cardiac stents in Dye’s arteries when the power went out. This unforeseen event left the surgeons with limited alternatives to provide the necessary treatment.
During the blackout, the hospital’s Emergency Power Off circuit was triggered, which, according to a coroner’s inquest, overrode the backup electrical supply. This situation left the medical team uncertain about the cause of the power failure. They had to wait for an engineer to reset the circuit during a critical phase of the operation.
The power outage in the operating room lasted for an extended 10 minutes. According to the coroner’s report, Dye’s death was due to an “iatrogenic dissection,” a term used to describe a tear in an artery that occurs during a medical procedure. The coroner stressed that the delay in restoring power was a significant factor in Dye’s death.
The exact cause of the power failure remains unknown. The coroner, Paul Smith, noted that if the staff had known the precise cause of the power loss and had the chance to reset the circuit without waiting for an engineer, the downtime could have been significantly reduced.