Process in Salzburg After Fatal Aortic Rupture

The death of a 79-year-old patient following an aortic rupture in March 2025 had repercussions at the Salzburg Regional Court on Thursday. The man's surviving family members are demanding 120,000 euros in compensation for grief and damages from the Salzburg Regional Hospitals (SALK) in a civil lawsuit. Their lawyer is convinced that the man from Salzburg could have been saved if a second heart surgery team had been available at the hospital after his admission.

The man was brought to the emergency room by ambulance at that time. A CT scan quickly confirmed the suspicion of an aortic dissection - a life-threatening tear in the innermost layer of the main artery. A diagnosis that requires immediate surgery. However, the operating room of the cardiac surgery department at the regional hospitals was occupied due to another emergency at that time. Although there was another operating room available, there was no second cardiac surgical team available.

"Everywhere we were told they had no capacity"

Five doctors from the emergency room then began calling over a dozen clinics in Austria, Bavaria, and Northern Italy. "Everywhere we were told they had no capacity," one of the doctors reported in court. Eventually, they received a commitment from the Klagenfurt Clinic. However, transferring the patient by helicopter over the Alps was not possible due to weather conditions.

After an initial refusal, the Kepler University Hospital in Linz agreed to take the man. However, due to another mission, the rescue helicopter was not immediately available. Still in Salzburg, the 79-year-old suffered cardiac and circulatory arrest. He was initially successfully resuscitated and stabilized. A good four hours after his admission, he was transferred by helicopter to Linz. There, he died in the airlock on the way to the operating room.

Lawyer speaks of organizational negligence

The Salzburg lawyer Stefan Rieder - representing the deceased's wife and two daughters - spoke of organizational negligence on Thursday. "Regular service ends at 3:30 PM, from then on only an emergency team is on site. In my opinion, that is not sufficient." The man was admitted outside of core working hours at that time.

"If there is already a second, appropriately equipped operating room, then I expect it to be utilized. Either with a second team on site or a quickly deployable reserve team."

The Salzburg State Hospitals emphasized in a statement after the incident became known that all medical steps were taken to treat the patient accordingly. "An operation at the University Clinic for Cardiac Surgery was not possible at that time because the cardiac surgery team was already engaged in an emergency operation," it was said at the time. The regional councilor responsible for health, Daniela Gutschi (ÖVP), also saw no misconduct. The university hospital is equipped for such emergencies, but in specialized areas, resources are exhausted at a certain point.

As was shown in court on Thursday during the questioning of doctors who were on duty at the time, there seems to be no internal hospital guideline or checklist for cases like the one that occurred. "We usually contact other hospitals to see if they have available capacity to take over," said a witness. "It is such that everyone calls where they have contacts or where they know someone." After the diagnosis of the 79-year-old, the doctors initially tried the nearby hospitals, but often had to first look up the phone numbers of the hospitals and departments, get connected, and were sometimes put on hold.

At the same time, two witnesses emphasized that a transfer to another hospital due to an occupied operating room is extremely rare. In the 15 years they have worked at the state hospitals, this would have been only the third case of an aortic dissection. Lawyer Rieder wanted to know if there is a digital platform where available operating room capacities of other hospitals can be seen at the push of a button. Such a platform was not known to the witnesses.

Judgment will be issued in writing

That the trial would end today, Thursday, was initially unlikely. The judgment will be issued in writing.

(APA/Red)

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