The trial of a surgeon accused of causing the death of a gunshot victim he was treating began in the Grand Court Monday.

Dr. Paul Anthony Taiganides, 62, a former Health Services Authority doctor, is charged with “manslaughter by unlawful act or omission” following the death of 29-year-old Travis Alexander Ebanks, who was taken to hospital after being shot on 21 Jan. 2024.

The doctor is accused of incorrectly intubating Ebanks, who was being treated in the hospital’s trauma room in the early hours of the morning after the shooting occurred.

Prosecutor Richard Matthews, KC, told the jury that upcoming testimony from experts who had examined X-rays of Ebanks’ abdomen would indicate that Taiganides had placed a breathing tube in Ebanks’ oesophagus, or gullet, instead of his trachea, or windpipe, meaning air was pumped into his stomach rather than into his lungs, causing his death.

Matthews said the indictment alleges that although Ebanks had been shot twice, “it was this doctor’s culpable negligence” that had caused his death.

He added, “Obviously, Mr. Ebanks had been shot. He was seriously injured. The Crown must make you sure that the failures [of] Dr. Taiganides … caused his death, accelerated it or made a material contribution to that death.”

Taiganides denies the charge. In a statement to police, which has been presented to the jurors, the doctor said the injuries sustained from the bullet wounds would have inevitably led to Ebanks’ death.

The jury was also presented with X-ray images of Ebanks’s torso, taken both while he was alive on the operating table and post-mortem, that showed the position of the bullet fragments and the intubating tube.

“Dr. Taiganides maintains that the wounds that you see depicted there were inevitably fatal. The prosecution will call evidence that, although they were serious and potentially fatal, they were not inevitably or immediately fatal, and that Mr. Ebanks retained a real prospect of survival if properly treated,” the prosecutor said.

Matthews noted that Ebanks had been hit by bullets in the neck and chest, but that he had been conscious and had responded to emergency medical technicians who transported him by ambulance to the hospital.

The prosecutor said evidence in the coming days and weeks would be provided by medical staff at the Anthony S. Eden Hospital, a pathologist, police officers and intubation experts.

The trial, before Justice Cheryll Richards, is scheduled to last four weeks. The prosecution’s evidence is set to begin on Tuesday, 8 Sept.