I Will Regret This Death My Entire Life

51-year-old Belgian Anesthetist, Helga Wauters, has been indicted for manslaughter, after inserting a breathing tube incorrectly into a patient while being under the influence of alcoholic substances from a past procedure that occurred in 2014. Wauters did not attend her trial on November 12, 2020, while the family members of the patient proceeded to Pau, France, in order to make an appearance at the judicial proceeding.

Xynthia Hawke, a 28-years old British patient, passed away shortly after her Caesarean Section surgery, moderated by Wauters, at the Orthez Hospital in 2014. The staff of the medical facility reported of Hawke waking up amid the surgery, heaving and yelling that “it [hurt].” A nurse witness recounted that the operation room was a cacophonous calamity, and compared the occurrences of the site with a war. Staff members who were employed at the same health facility as Wauters made an honest complaint against the fact that Wauters returned to the hospital, smelling of alcohol. Wauters later claimed that she had indulgenced in a drinking session consisting of glasses of rose wine with a number of her confidants before Hawke’s C-section procedure. It was then later revealed that “esophageal intubation” or the misplacement of the breathing tube in the esophagus, which was performed by Wauters, was conducive to Hawke’s tragic passing.

Esophageal intubation can cause a myriad of detrimental complications like air-management difficulties and brain damage, if not treated immediately. Wauters was ultimately sentenced to three years in jail and permanently evicted from practicing any variant of medicine. The court of Pau has ordained Wauters to yield €1.4 million (US$1.65 million) to compensate for the death of Hawke.  

“I definitely don’t believe that 3 years will be enough,” proclaimed Yun Yi Z., a freshman at AISG. “I don’t see why she wasn’t charged with more years, especially when most manslaughters are charged for more than three years. She was an anesthetic, a trained professional, and being drunk during a procedure that gravely puts someone’s life at risk is definitely not an excuse. Who even let her perform the C-Section while she was drunk?”  

Yun Ran Z., a sixth-grade student at AISG, had a different approach to Hawke’s passing. She admitted that though Wauters had been responsible for the death of Hawke; however, believed that it was an accidental death, and ascertained that three years was just enough time for her to reflect back on what she had done and undergo rehabilitation for her past misdeeds.  

During Wauters’s time in temporary confinement, the alcohol contents in her blood measured circa 2.38 grams per liter, or approximately equivalent to around 10 glasses of wine.  

Not only a short time after the proposal of the case, it was revealed that Wauters was notorious for being a chronic alcoholic even before the case, who would part take in “everyday” drinking sessions consisting of vinous alcoholic substances like vodka and wine.