It became apparent that my registrar had completely misunderstood the anatomy and opened the spine at the outer rather than the inner edge of the spinal canal and hence had immediately encountered a nerve root, which, even more incomprehensibly, he had then severed. It was an utterly bizarre thing to have done, especially as he had seen dozens of these operations done before, and done many unsupervised on his own. ‘I think you’ve cut straight through the nerve – a complete neurotmesis,’ I said sadly to my dumb-struck assistant.
