As I started to remove the last part of the tumour I tore a small perforating branch off the basilar artery, a vessel the width of a thick pin. A narrow jet of bright red arterial blood started to pump upwards. I knew at once that this was a catastrophe. The blood loss was trivial, and easy enough to stop, but the damage to the brainstem was terrible. The basilar artery is the artery that keeps the brainstem alive and it is the brainstem that keeps the rest of the brain awake. As a result the patient never woke up and that was why, seven years later, I saw him curled into a sad ball, on a bed
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