Carer has leg amputated after doctors took too long to assess case during lockdown
A 25-year-old carer had her leg amputated after doctors took too long to treat her during lockdown.
Molly Harbron lost her left leg in April 2020 after medics failed to act quickly enough when she was hospitalised complaining of a tingling sensation.
Mrs Harbron was left feeling that “life wasn’t worth living” after she awoke from surgery to a missing limb.
Mrs Harbron told The Telegraph: “It was petrifying. I woke up and was shown that I had no leg. It was absolutely awful. I broke down in tears and was crying over the phone to my Mum. But I was all alone in the hospital because of lockdown restrictions, it felt like a nightmare.”
She added: “I remember joking with the surgeon before the operation and saying ‘don’t chop my leg off because you’ll make me an inch shorter’. He responded ‘I’ll make you two inches shorter if you aren’t careful’.”
The Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust admitted liability for the incident and apologised for its mistakes.
“All I have is a letter saying sorry and that’s not good enough. I used to run a few miles a week and now I’m mostly in a wheelchair,” she said.
Mrs Harbron, who has Type 1 diabetes, went to Dewsbury Hospital A&E on April 25 2020, during the initial Covid-19 lockdown, after experiencing numbness in her foot and calf pain.
Doctors suspected she was suffering from deep vein thrombosis and booked her in for surgery at 9pm that day.
But the procedure did not take place until 1pm the next day after she was transferred to Pinderfields Hospital for a scan and then to Leeds General Infirmary for emergency surgery.
Mrs Harbron said she had been experiencing diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition where the blood sugar spikes, which leads to blood clots. She believes the condition was the reason she lost her leg and that earlier treatment would have prevented the issue.
Surgeons were unable to save Mrs Harbron’s leg during the delayed procedure and were forced to carry out a below-the-knee amputation.
She then suffered from sepsis and medics had to carry out an above-the-knee amputation.
The Mid Yorkshire Hospital Trust, which runs the Dewsbury facility, has admitted failings in the care of Mrs Harbron.
She said: “I’m angry, especially because I know it could have been prevented. It’s a kick in the teeth.
“It is heart-breaking just knowing that I could lead a normal life, but because of them I can’t.”
Mrs Harbron, who now uses a wheelchair and a prosthetic, said her former partner left her “because he didn’t want to go out with a disabled girl”.
She worried that no one would want to date her, but a month later she met her now husband, whom she married in 2023.
Her lawyers are negotiating a settlement to cover the impact on her life, the cost of rehabilitation and future care.
The former carer said she wanted to raise awareness of her issue and prevent a similar incident happening to anyone else.
She said: “I don’t want it to happen to someone else. They might not have the support that I had. The hospital needs to take accountability with what they have done playing god with people’s lives.”
Richard Robinson, chief medical officer at the Mid Yorkshire Hospital Trust said: “We aim to ensure all patients get the right diagnosis and the treatment they need to get better. In Mrs Harbron’s case that did not happen and for that I am sincerely sorry.
“Patient safety and achieving the best treatment results is a priority for us and we work continuously to improve.”
