News > Anaesthetist goes on trial in France over death of British woman

Anaesthetist goes on trial in France over death of British woman

An alcoholic anaesthetist who botched an emergency caesarean operation that left a young British woman brain dead had been drinking since she woke up that morning, a French court has heard.

Helga Wauters, 51, pushed a breathing tube into 28-year-old Xynthia Hawke’s oesophagus instead of her windpipe and failed to react even when the young woman turned blue, vomited, cried out in pain and went into cardiac arrest.