A surgeon has been acquitted of causing a patient’s death after a magistrate concluded that the man had not died as a result of a mistake on the operating table.

The surgeon, who cannot be named by court order, was carrying out a heart bypass in September 2006 when a colleague removed what he thought was a vein from the patient’s leg, to use in the bypass, but that later turned out to be an artery.

The mistake, according to medical experts, occurred because of a rare medical fluke where the artery was abnormally closer to the skin rather than deeper down.

Coupled with the fact that the middle-aged man was very ill, the artery looked and acted like a vein instead of a throbbing artery, the magistrate heard.

The mistake was almost immediately rectified by the doctor carrying out the bypass operation and an artificial link was made.

The following day the patient’s leg remained cold and a second operation was carried out when blood was found to be clotting the repaired artery.

The patient made a full recovery and even started walking but, four months later in the first week of December 2006, two of his toes turned blue and it was decided to amputate his leg.

It was not an urgent operation and the man was allowed to spend Christmas at home but, on Christmas Eve, his son found him lying on a sofa in a pool of blood.

He bled heavily from a wound and also suffered gastrointestinal bleeding, which led to his death.

Magistrate Edwina Grima said the evidence produced in the involuntary homicide case had proved the exact opposite of what had been concluded during the magisterial inquiry, which had blamed both surgeons for the patient’s death.

The magistrate said she could not help observing that although the inquiry experts had reached their own conclusions after hearing the witnesses, it seemed that at least two of them were not aware of the autopsy conclusions.

The surgeon carrying out the bypass operation had acted in the very best interests of the patient and could not be found guilty of having been negligent and causing the man’s death.

Lawyers Giannella de Marco, Steve Tonna Lowell and George Hyzler appeared for him.