Millionaire grandfather died from infection from dirty needle in French hospital

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An inquest has heard that a millionaire holidaymaker died from a fatal infection because an unclean drip was inserted into his arm in a French hospital.

The Daily Mail reports that David Foster, 76, was admitted to Annecy Hospital near Geneva after complaining of severe back pain while skiing with his family in March last year.

He was flown back to England eleven days later, but died when an infection he picked up in hospital ruptured his heart and caused a cardiac arrest.

Matthew Waltham, the consultant vascular surgeon who treated him at St Thomas' Hospital, London, said that the infection was most likely caused by an unclean drip.

He told the Daily Mail: "It certainly looked then like the infection was caused by the cannula and it still looks like that now. I believe the cannula was put in during his stay at the hospital in France. The specimen was labelled in French."

The Telegraph reports that when Mr Foster returned to England he was diagnosed with an aortic dissection, a tear in the inner wall of the aorta.

A stent was inserted, but he died on April 4, 2012. A post-mortem found that death was caused by a rupture of the aortic wall, with evidence of sepsis caused by the infection.

He was also found to have been suffering from terminal cancer which had spread to his bone marrow and bloodstream. He was not aware of this when he was admitted to hospital but it meant that his immune system was weakened and he was not able to fight off the infection from the cannula.

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