Jury Sworn In For Manslaughter Trial Of Surgeon. Crown Says Breathing Tube Was Put Into Travis Ebanks’ Food Pipe And The Error Was Never Recognised

By Alric Lindsay

A jury was selected in the Grand Court today, September 7, 2026, in the manslaughter trial of Paul Anthony Taiganides, the former Health Services Authority surgeon accused of causing the death of Travis Alexander Derron Ebanks in the trauma room of the George Town hospital. Justice Richards is presiding.

The prosecution opened its case, telling the jury that Taiganides passed a breathing tube into Ebanks’ oesophagus rather than his windpipe, failed to establish where the tube had actually gone, and never corrected the error.

As a result of the alleged incident, the prosecution said that Taiganides was charged under section 180 of the Penal Code. Under this section, the manslaughter charged is described as “An unlawful omission… amounting to culpable negligence to discharge a duty tending to the preservation of life or health, whether such omission is or is not accompanied by an intention to cause death or bodily harm.” The prosecution particularised this as an alleged failure by Taiganides to secure an airway through attempting endotracheal intubation, and failing to recognise oesophageal intubation.

The prosecution took the jury through various stages, including from the time when Ebanks was shot, to the trauma room to events following Ebanks’ death.

The prosecution’s account of the trauma room

The prosecution said Taiganides was the senior trauma surgeon on call and arrived after Ebanks had already been admitted to the trauma room. Some treatment, the prosecution said, occurred before he assumed control. Once he took charge, he became responsible for the important decisions, including the decision to secure Ebanks’ airway.

The court heard that Taiganides decided Ebanks needed urgent oxygen and decided to carry out the procedure himself. A tube was passed through Ebanks and was supposed to end up in his windpipe. A hand-operated bag was attached to the tube to push air through it.

According to the prosecution, the tube was not in the windpipe. It went instead into the oesophagus — the passage food and drink travel down. Allegedly, air pumped through the bag inflated Ebanks’ stomach with gas. The prosecution said the distended stomach then narrowed Ebanks’ windpipe from behind, leaving him without an effective airway and compressing the very airway the procedure was meant to protect.

The prosecution described this as a failure concerning the single most fundamental procedure a doctor in that position performs, and told the jury that oesophageal intubation is not an accident or an unexpected event. Because the risk is so well known, the prosecution said, every doctor is trained to guard against it. Whether the tube has entered the windpipe or the food pipe is, the prosecution said, one of the first things that must be considered.

Once Taiganides undertook the procedure, the prosecution argued, the fundamental responsibility rested on him to be certain the airway was secured.

The checks the prosecution says were available

The prosecution took the jury through the checks it says were open to Taiganides.

The chest could be examined. The patient could be examined. If there was any uncertainty, the tube could be checked again or replaced.

Central to the prosecution’s case is capnography. The court heard that once the tube is inserted and the bag attached, breathing management equipment is connected to detect carbon dioxide returning from the lungs. It should appear on the monitor as a line rising and falling — what the prosecution described as a clear and sustained waveform. The line must be the right shape, and it must continue. Capnography, the prosecution said, was the principal safeguard for checking whether the tube had reached the lungs.

The jury also heard about a portable digital X-ray machine brought into the trauma room, capable of producing an image while Ebanks remained on the treatment bed that could be viewed immediately. The prosecution stressed that the X-ray is a supplementary check, not a substitute: the doctor must establish whether oxygen is reaching the lungs.

Accounts given after the death

A significant part of the opening concerned what was said after Ebanks was pronounced dead. The question the jury will have to consider, the prosecution said, is whether accounts given afterwards faithfully reflect what occurred in the trauma room, or whether they amount to a “shifting reconstruction.”

The court heard that in an interview, Taiganides provided a prepared statement in which he said the tube was correctly placed, that its position was confirmed by listening for sounds, that Ebanks’ oxygen levels briefly improved, and that the gunshot injuries were so severe that death was inevitable.

Causation and survivability

The prosecution accepted that this is not a case in which it is alleged the doctor deliberately harmed Ebanks. It is a case, the prosecution said, of a catastrophic failure of the single most fundamental responsibility a doctor has.

The prosecution’s position is that Ebanks’ wounds were potentially survivable. Taiganides’ position, as reflected in his account, is that the wounds were inevitably fatal.

The prosecution took the jury through images showing the path of the bullets through the chest and neck, telling jurors these were not gratuitous images of gunshot wounds but material to help them understand the arguments about survivability.

The jury was told that the pathologist concluded that the tube was in the oesophagus, that the intubation contributed to the death, and that the death was not consistent with the gunshot injuries alone. Post-mortem X-ray images taken before the invasive examination show the tube still in place; a zoomed view of the larynx region shows the tube not passing through the airway, and an image of the abdomen shows the stomach still enlarged with gas.

Professor Charles Deakin, an expert in airway management and resuscitation, is also expected to feature in the evidence. The court heard that one issue is whether the tube could have moved after death or during handling of the body.

The prosecution reminded the jury that it bears the burden of proof, and that it must prove something far more serious than an ordinary mistake — that the failure was so exceptionally bad as to amount to criminal, culpable negligence, and that it caused the death of Ebanks. The prosecution does not have to prove it was the sole cause of death.

The questions for the jury

The prosecution framed the issues as a sequence: did Taiganides assume responsibility for securing the airway; did he perform the procedure properly; did the tube enter the oesophagus rather than the windpipe; what steps were taken or not taken to determine where the tube had gone; once the problem arose, did an opportunity arise to correct it; and, taken together, do those failures amount to culpable negligence.

Witness evidence to come

The jury was told to expect accounts from emergency physicians, an emergency technician involved in early treatment, and nursing staff, including a trauma room scribe whose role was to record observations.

The prosecution cautioned that presence in the room does not mean a later recollection is reliable, that the presence of a scribe does not mean everything was recorded, and that some witnesses were present for only part of the treatment and were performing different tasks. Accounts must be compared against the objective evidence, and it will be for the jury to decide what weight can be placed on any account given.

The trial continues on September 8.

Note to readers

This article reports allegations made by the prosecution in its opening statement. An opening statement is not evidence. The defence has not yet put its case, and Taiganides is presumed innocent. A final determination will be made by the jury after all the evidence has been heard.