text: Doctors at a scandal-hit hospital covered up a series of horrendous mistakes that led to the death of a twin baby boy, a coroner has ruled. Thor Dalhaug died an hour after birth following a difficult delivery during which he suffered fatal brain damage due to a doctor’s errors, ruled Stuart Fisher, senior coroner for Central Lincolnshire. In a damning report, he said an unsupervised junior surgeon tried to deliver the baby using forceps in an ‘unorthodox and unacceptable’ way. The coroner also concluded that senior managers at Lincoln County Hospital had tried to remove the fact that forceps had been used from an account of the birth. Doctors at the Lincoln County Hospital covered up a series of horrendous mistakes that led to the death of a twin baby boy (pictured above with his mother Michelle), a coroner has ruled . The report will come as a blow to the hospital, which has just been taken out of ‘special measures’. United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust was put on a turnaround regime almost two years ago because of concerns over high death rates. It is meant to have made a host of improvements. But Thor’s parents said the report revealed that staff had behaved ‘appallingly’ over their son’s death in September 2013. Rolf and Michelle Dalhaug were delighted when they found out they were expecting twins after seven years of trying for a baby. She was taken for a caesarean as doctors found Thor was distressed. But after the baby’s head became stuck, junior surgeon Dr Deniz Al-Hirmizy tried to free him with her hands, before resorting to forceps. The baby was born alive but limp. Doctors resuscitated him but he died an hour later. Mr Fisher ruled that Thor died of brain damage as a result of attempts to free the baby’s head. He also wrote that the ‘use of forceps in these circumstances was unorthodox and unacceptable’. While Dr Al-Hirmizy stated she had ‘experience of caesareans’, she claimed she had been ‘unsupervised’, wrote Mr Fisher. Surgeons ‘neglected to make a full note of the circumstances’, he found. ‘In particular’, he wrote, a doctor ‘was advised to amend the caesarean pro forma, to include the fact that forceps were used’. But this doctor was ‘dissuaded from doing so by senior management as a result of concerns as to how this would be perceived’. Mr Fisher ruled that Thor died of brain damage as a result of attempts to free the baby’s head during delivery at the hospital (above) Mr Dalhaug, 39, said: ‘The Trust have acted appallingly, causing our family great hardship. We accept that accidents can, do and will happen. What we do not accept is their failure to be honest, their failure to learn and their failure to act.’ Dr Suneil Kapadia, the Trust’s medical director, apologised to the Dalhaug family and said it would pay them compensation. He went on to say that the Care Quality Commission had recently rated the hospital’s maternity services as good. But Suzanne White, a partner at law firm Leigh Day, said the family was looking at bringing a private prosecution. She added: ‘Despite representing families at inquests for over 15 years, I am astonished by the circumstances surrounding baby Thor’s tragic death.’
target: Thor Dalhaug died at Lincoln County Hospital in September 2013 .
  Unsupervised surgeon used forceps in an 'unacceptable' way, report said .
  Senior managers then tried to remove the fact forceps had been used .