The doctor of the St. Petersburg private ambulance “Koris” Lev Averbakh on Wednesday, February 15, told Izvestia whether a medical error could lead to amputations of the Russian figure skater Roman Kostomarov.
“As for the mistakes of doctors, it is very difficult to judge. I think they made every effort. It’s just that the disease is such that it was impossible to cope with it with some modern methods available for modern medicine. Such an immune failure occurred in the body, did such an infection get there? They did everything possible for sure, 100%, but the body did not succumb to treatment, ”he said.
In addition, the doctor noted that from a medical point of view, Kostomarov and the singer MakSim (Marina Abrosimova), who was diagnosed with necrosis in the same hospital in 2021, cannot be compared. Then the artist was transferred to another medical institution, where amputations were avoided.
As the doctor emphasized, in different patients the same disease can manifest itself in different ways. Averbakh also said that no claims can be made against doctors due to lack of data and ignorance of what is happening with the patient. According to him, it is possible to talk about mistakes only when there is a forensic medical examination.
“We don’t know what he was ill with before, we don’t know what diseases he still has, what vascular lesions could be. <…> And the fact that a bacterial infection can join a viral infection and disrupt blood circulation is a complication that can appear after such diseases, ”he explained.
Averbakh said that it is equally impossible to treat everyone, since each organism gives an individual reaction to the methods of doctors.
As the source of Izvestia explained, necrosis develops very quickly, and in Kostomarov it began even on a ventilator. It was impossible to operate on a skater in such a state, as this would be disastrous for him.
“Treatment tactics are chosen in order to [некроз] stop a little, only after that and, if the person is already more or less, they take the operation. That is, at the sight of a black part of the finger, let’s say no one will pull it off immediately, ”he explained.
On the night of February 15, it was reported that Kostomarov became worse after amputation of the hands. He couldn’t breathe on his own. Doctors feared for the skater’s left lung due to fibrosis. Later, the Izvestia source said that the skater’s condition was slightly stabilized after a sharp deterioration.
The athlete was hospitalized on January 10 with complaints of weakness and chest pain. Then the skater was transferred to intensive care with sepsis and left-sided pneumonia. Kostomarov was connected to a ventilator, in addition, he underwent an ECMO procedure (a method of artificial blood oxygen saturation in the development of severe acute respiratory failure).
In early February, the skater had his foot amputated on one leg. The operation was necessary to remove tissue necrosis that developed against the background of the inflammatory process. Later, there were reports that the second foot of the athlete had to be amputated. On February 14, it was reported that Kostomarov underwent a second operation – both hands were amputated.
The skater’s mother told Izvestia that, according to doctors’ forecasts, the process of restoring her son’s health could take a long time. According to her, it all started after the skater worked in ice shows on New Year’s holidays.
