Doctor gets life in prison after intentionally botching spine surgery in Dallas

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A Dallas jury sentenced a neurosurgeon to life in prison after they heard from patient after patient who testified Christopher Duntsch seriously maimed them while they were under his knife.

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That victim, Mary Efurd, was 74 in 2012 when she went under Duntsch's knife and lost a third of her blood and the full use of her legs.

"I trusted him," Efurd testified three weeks ago. "I trusted that he would do what was right."

But a doctor who treated Efurd after her botched surgery said Duntsch had "done virtually everything wrong." Dr. Robert Henderson found implants placed in muscle instead of on bone, a screw drilled into her spinal cavity and a nerve root that had been amputated.

"It's as egregious as you can imagine," Henderson said.

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