Sochi police plan to investigate the doctors who delayed treating a Russian break dance champion after a road accident for a week and later amputated his leg due to gangrene.
Yevgeny Smirnov, 25, the holder of 30 break dancing trophies, was seriously injured when a car cut in in front of his motorscooter in the Black Sea resort of Lazarevskoye on April 30. Smirnov spun off the highway and fainted after the collision. The driver of the car fled from the scene of the accident but was later found by Smirnov’s friends and the police, his friend Anna Kharlamova said. A criminal investigation has been opened into the road accident.
An ambulance took Smirnov to the nearest hospital in Lazarevskoye where doctors diagnosed him with a double open shin-bone fracture.
Smirnov’s friends insisted he be transferred to the regional center of Krasnodar, which has a bigger hospital than the one he was first taken to. Local doctors kept turning them down until Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov stepped in.
The delays in treatment resulted in gangrene and his leg had to be amputated. The gangrene then began spreading to his other leg, but doctors in Krasnodar carried out surgery in a bid to stop the infection from spreading and stitched the second leg on May 14.
If a criminal case is initiated against the doctors and they are found guilty, they could face up to one year in prison.