A surgeon told a murder trial yesterday that two wounds found in the deceased's heart during autopsy, presumed to be caused by a stabbing, were actually caused by him and a colleague.
Dr Michael Tolan of St James's Hospital, Dublin, was giving evidence to the Central Criminal Court in the trial of a Ballyfermot man, accused of the murder.
Darren Rogers (21) of Elmdale Park, Ballyfermot, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Thomas Farrell (41) of Cherry Orchard Avenue, also Ballyfermot, on November 27th, 2003.
On the sixth day of the trial, Dr Tolan told a jury of seven men and five women, that he and his surgical team operated on Mr Farrell, a stab victim, on November 26th, 2003.
They found a wound to the man's lung, which they sutured. They checked the heart, which was clear, and sent the patient to intensive care. When asked by Mr Fergal Kavanagh, SC, defending, why the lung suture was not noted in the post-mortem report, Dr Tolan said: "I can't explain why."
In her testimony on Wednesday, State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy noted that out of the three wounds, two to the heart and one to the lung, only one puncture to the heart had been stitched.
The surgeon said that after surgery, the patient's blood pressure dropped dramatically. They reopened him for three reasons, he said: to rule out the possibility of massive bleeding; to make sure they had not missed a wound in the pericardial sac and to carry out a cardiac massage.
He said they used scissors to open the pericardial sac and blood gushed from, he presumed, the right atrium. He assumed this was a result of the scissors cutting not only the sac, but also the right atrium which was under severe pressure from fluids the patient had received.
Dr Tolan said they stitched up the heart, and his explanation for this not being recorded was that he and his colleague "must have omitted to do the operation note". Mr Kavanagh put it to the surgeon that because the patient was lying on his side when he first saw him he did not notice the victim had been stabbed in the back. He suggested that when they opened Mr Farrell, they identified only one wound to the pericardia, stitched it and closed him, missing the other one and the wound in the lung. He argued that the team only noticed these wounds in the second surgery.
To back up his theory, he said the entrance wound to the back had not been stitched up.
Dr Tolan refuted this, saying: "If you had any wound to the pericardia, it's incumbent on you to examine the whole heart. You wouldn't suture one wound and leave another one beside it."
As for the stab wound being stitched up, he said, small wounds were often not stitched to prevent infection; they healed themselves.
Dr Tolan was due to be the last prosecution witness in this case, but after his cross-examination yesterday, Mr Anthony Sammon, SC, for the State applied for a transcript of his evidence to be made available to Dr Cassidy, whom he wishes to recall.
Ms Justice Dunne has agreed to the first request and instructed for Dr Cassidy to be "on standby" this morning, in case she allows her to be recalled.