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Sarah Thomas went into surgery in November of 2013 to get her tonsils removed.
While getting your tonsils removed certainly isn’t a pleasant experience, she didn’t expect to experience the long-term trauma that occurred.
In the middle of her operation, she woke up unexpectedly, and suddenly, she could feel everything.
“The first thing I felt was pain in the right side of my throat where the laser treatment was being applied,” she said. “I was in severe agony and the pain was all I could feel.”
However, she was unable to move, and her eyelids had been taped down before the surgery.
“I was screaming inside my head and trying to move, but I had no means of signaling that I was awake.”
This went on for fifteen minutes, until she heard a nurse say, “I think she’s woken up.” Then, she was put under again.
But her terrible experience didn’t end then.
After the operation, she had to quit her job. The panic attacks and post-traumatic stress became too much for her to bear.
She’s received counseling, but she says she still experiences nightmares on a recurring basis.
“I recall that feeling of being trapped in my own body and in pain,” she says. “On other occasions, I dream I am back in the operating theatre but with a bird’s eye view where I am looking down on myself.”
The fault was with the machine that was administrating the anesthetic. The machine should have beeped when the level of her anesthetic was low, but it didn’t, and it was allowed to drain out.
She felt okay at first. It wasn’t until she started feeling sick and having nightmares and panic attacks that she realized that the experience had affected her.
The NHS compensated her for the medical mistake. She’s grateful, but she maintains that “no amount of money can compensate for what I’ve been through.”
Thanks to counseling, anti-depressants, and her mother’s support, she’s beginning to get over the experience.
“I am not having the panic attacks like I used to, and I feel much better, even though I still have some trouble sleeping,” she says.
But the experience has affected her forever. “I never want to have an operation again.”
