Neil Hopper was celebrated for continuing to do his job despite the loss of his lower limbs. But what the people he was treating didn’t know was that his injuries were self-inflicted. Now they and their families are asking questions
Warning: this story contains graphic descriptions of bodily mutilation that some readers may find upsetting
Of all the things that happened in the fraught days after 72-year-old Liz Spooner had her leg amputated at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro in 2022, one memory remains vivid in the mind of her daughter, Faye Harrison. Liz’s surgery had taken much longer than anticipated, Faye remembers, and, delirious after the anaesthetic and morphine, Liz had begun to refuse food and medication. That’s when Faye was ushered into a side room with a consultant surgeon.
“He was smiley. He came across as quite charming and caring,” Faye recalls. He ran through a long list of the medications Liz was taking, and began explaining why she needed them. “I remember looking down – you look down at the floor a lot when you have these kinds of conversations – and I noticed he’d got metal sticks coming out of his trouser legs.” Faye blinks in disbelief at the memory. “I thought, blimey, he’s operated on my mum, but he’s also an amputee.”
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Neil Hopper was celebrated for continuing to do his job despite the loss of his lower limbs. But what the people he was treating didn’t know was that his injuries were self-inflicted. Now they and their families are a...
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