Doctor ‘Gobsmacked’ by Spy’s Daughter’s Awakening, Inquiry Hears

The initial physician attending to the poisoned daughter of a Russian spy did not anticipate her regaining movement, an inquiry has been informed. Dr. Stephen Cockroft, an intensive care consultant at Salisbury District Hospital, stated that a nurse alerted him to Yulia Skripal’s sudden return to consciousness. He recounted having to “clutch” Ms. Skripal’s hands to prevent her from removing a drip upon her emergence from a coma. Testifying at the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry, Dr. Cockroft remarked: “I was gobsmacked – this was a girl I never thought I would see move again.” Ms. Skripal was admitted to the hospital on March 4, 2018, in a deeply unconscious state, alongside her father, Sergei Skripal, following their poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. The pair had been discovered collapsed on a bench in Salisbury city centre. Dr. Cockroft mentioned that after Ms. Skripal awoke, he attempted to inquire if they had been attacked, but “by that stage the sedation was beginning to take hold.” Dr. Cockroft was speaking at an inquiry investigating the death of Dawn Sturgess, 44, from Wiltshire, who died from Novichok poisoning four months after the incident involving the Skripals. Ms. Sturgess was accidentally exposed to the nerve agent eight miles away in Amesbury and passed away on July 8, 2018. He informed the panel on Thursday that he had quickly entered Ms. Skripal’s room and observed her attempting to get out of bed while connected to a ventilator, a dialysis machine, and several intravenous drips in her neck. He added that he “grabbed hold of her hands” as she was trying to pull at a catheter in a large vein. He warned, “If she pulled that out she could have bled catastrophically.” Dr. Cockroft also disclosed to the inquiry that a police officer advised him to search for information about his patient’s background. He quoted the officer: “One of the police constables came up to me and said ‘I think you should Google Sergei Skripal doctor, you’re not going to believe what I have just found out,”. On Wednesday, Dr. James Haslam, a fellow consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine who subsequently took over the Skripals’ care, told the inquiry that people had “looked on the internet” to discover more about Mr. Skripal. Through this, they uncovered his past as a Russian spy, which he said “raised more suspicion” that the incident was “a targeted potential assassination attempt.” The panel was informed that the Skripals were initially treated for an opioid overdose, but both Dr. Cockroft and Dr. Haslam quickly suspected poisoning. Dr. Cockroft stated that police officers visited the ward in the early hours of March 5, where it was concluded that radiation poisoning was improbable, and a possible homicide or suicide attempt was discussed. When asked if he would have considered a nerve agent, such as Novichok, he replied: “That’s a pretty wild thing to suddenly think of in Salisbury on the early hours of Monday morning.” Regarding the Skripals’ presentation, Dr. Cockroft indicated that he had “seen something similar many years earlier” but did not elaborate. Instead, he described contemplating the possibility of a “highly toxic synthetic opiate” like carfentanyl, which possesses a potency “hundreds of thousands of times greater than fentanyl.” He asserted: “It would definitely be an assassination attempt if one deployed carfentanyl,” adding, “It could have only one purpose and that’s to kill.” He further explained that his knowledge of the substance dated back to the early 1990s, a period during which he “maintained an unhealthy interest” in the use of such agents, citing suspected deployment by foreign governments, including Russia. Dr. Haslam testified to the inquiry on Wednesday that the Skripals’ symptoms were “too extreme” for “a normal presentation for recreational drug overdoses.” By Monday evening, he began to suspect organophosphates—a group of chemicals encompassing nerve agents such as Novichok—after recalling information from his “studying for lots of exams.” Describing the “extremely challenging” situation to the panel, Dr. Haslam noted that both father and daughter received the lowest possible score on the coma scale, with Ms. Skripal in a more critical state. He stated: “In order to keep them both alive it was essential to provide invasive, aggressive and intensive medical life support, without which they would have died.” Explaining how he came to realize nerve agents might be involved, he said: “The symptoms had evolved over time and it wasn’t feeling like an opioid toxicity to me by that stage. “So from the back of my memory, from studying for lots of exams, I wondered about organophosphates and so I enquired about how to investigate for that. “It was not something that I had ever treated before and not many people in the UK have.” He also mentioned spending “most of Monday night” researching organophosphates. The inquiry was informed that the Skripals underwent testing for possible radiation poisoning, but this possibility was ruled out after no relevant material was discovered. Discussing the broader impact on the community, Dr. Haslam added that there was apprehension within the medical community “that there would be more casualties.” He elaborated: “That was one of our early, significant concerns because we wondered about whether we would have the resources to be able to manage many more patients.”