‘Remarkable young man’ was leading normal life at uni

ASSISTANT coroner Jean Harkin said Matthew Densfield was a very ‘remarkable young man’.

She told the hearing: “He had overcome his medical problems to live a normal life and go on to study at Leeds University.

“Of note, what can be remembered in Matthew’s last weeks of life is he was very happy at university and to all intents and purposes he probably expected to come out of this surgery and continue.

“It’s clear from the evidence of the cardiac surgeon that Matthew had a very complex cardiac fault which needed to be corrected and Matthew sadly suffered a lack of oxygen.

“In addition, it’s clear from the consent form the risk of surgery was normally between five and 10 per cent but because of abnormalities Matthew’s risk was 15 to 20 per cent.

“That was very high risk surgery.

“We can see this surgeon made all efforts to try for a successful outcome but alas that wasn’t to be.

“We know there was a delay in the scan report of almost two months and any delay of reports that can have a serious outcome has to be investigated.

“It’s clear that this delay didn’t affect the eventual outcome and it’s encouraging that Dr Hamish was able to identify the problem with the MRI scan and he was able to ensure that was given to the team treating Matthew.

“He’s given further training to his team and I’m satisfied that won’t happen again in the future.”