Prairie torture victim's face stunned surgeon
Calgary doctor details injuries allegedly inflicted by Dustin Paxton
He had never seen injuries like it.
That's what a Calgary plastic surgeon testified Monday in the trial of Dustin Paxton, who is charged with assault and forcible confinement.
Dr. David MacKenzie testified at Calgary’s Court of Queen's Bench that when he treated the victim — who cannot be named because of a court order — at the Foothills hospital in the fall of 2009 he was stunned by the man’s face.
Two thirds of the man's lower lip was missing, he said, and what remained were the man’s teeth marks, suggesting a blunt force injury, MacKenzie testified.
The assault victim’s eye socket was shattered, and his cheek and nose broken, he said. As well, he added, the man had broken ribs, a fractured skull and spinal column, and lacerations to his spleen, liver and small intestine. His lungs had collapsed.
The testimony is the latest in the trial of Paxton, who is accused of physical and sexual assault and unlawful confinement of his former roommate and business partner.
The doctor said there were new injuries when he saw the patient several months later.
When he asked the victim how he got his injuries, MacKenzie said, the man was "evasive." He told him a freezer had fallen on top of him. MacKenzie said he didn’t believe it, noting the injuries didn’t fit that description.
In April 2010, the man turned up at a Regina hospital beaten, brain damaged and malnourished — weighing just 87 pounds.
A pathologist who treated him there is scheduled to testify before Justice Sheilah Martin on Tuesday.