Miraculous

Skripal Doctors Say They Didn’t Expect Victims to Survive Nerve Attack

Medics who treated Russian poisoning victims at hospital speak out.

The hospital staffers who treated Sergei and Yulia Skripal—who were attacked by a military-grade nerve agent in England—have said they are shocked the two survived the attempted murders. The former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a Novichok agent in March in an attack the U.K. blamed on Moscow. Both have since been discharged from hospital. “When we first were aware this was a nerve agent, we were expecting them not to survive. We would try all our therapies. We would ensure the best clinical care. But all the evidence was there that they would not survive,” said Stephen Jukes, an intensive-care consultant at the hospital. Hospital staff were unaware of the gravity of the situation when the two were admitted—until police moved in to protect the Skripals. “I spoke to the nurse in charge,” recalled Duncan Murray, the hospital’s senior intensive-care consultant, “and it was this conversation I really could never have imagined in my wildest imagination as having with anyone.”