85-year-old dies just days after receiving hip operation

AN 85-year-old man who spent the last years of his life in agonising pain awaiting a hip replacement, has passed away just four days after finally undergoing surgery.

Samuel Thomas ‘Tom’ Bogle (pictured), from Castlederg, was ‘literally begging for the operation’ as he had been suffering for so long.

The former welder and gate-maker died on Friday and a service of thanksgiving for his life was held in First Castlederg Presbyterian Church on Monday, followed by interment in Castlederg New Cemetery.

Speaking this week in the wake of his passing, Mr Bogel’s grand-daughter Gill Davis believes the three-years her granda spent waiting for the hip replacement in constant, extreme pain, ultimately hastened his death.

“He was old and he wasn’t going to live forever,” Gill said.

“But I think the pain was affecting everything and it just wore him down,”she continued.

“It’s tragic.

“He waited three years in pain but granny and granda are that civil, they thought they would sit back and the health service would call him when they were ready.”

In the end, the family decided to go private for the hip replacement.

However, because they had had to wait so long, Mr Bogel had weakened and the private hospital warned that he might not be strong enough for the surgery.

Mr Bogel had also suffered a heart-attack last Christmas.

“The anaesthetist rang one hour before we went down the road to ask if we really wanted to do it because there was a chance that he wouldn’t get through it,” Gill continued.

“Granda had said, ‘I don’t want to die but I can’t stick this pain any more’.

“Up until the last minute he was saying that if you were an Alsatian dog with its legs going down you would go to the vet and have it put down. He said it was cruel the pain he was going through.

“He had no life. He said it was cruel and inhuman how he was left waiting for so long. To see a man of his age crying and in 24-hour pain, it was heartbreaking.”

At first Mr Bogle appeared to have made it through the surgery on Monday (November 1) and in the intervening days the family were told he was doing well. However by the Friday, he had passed away.

“He pulled through the operation but he was dead on Friday at three o’clock, the wee darling,” Gill said.

“I know he wasn’t in the best of health but I know as well that three years ago his body was stronger and he would have had more of a chance to come through the hip replacement. The pain had destroyed him. Not only was he in pain, he couldn’t even get out of bed without being lifted.

“He is at peace now, I know. And if he hadn’t had the surgery, he would have been coming out to die a slow and painful death anyway.

“His death is so difficult to accept on one hand, but I’m happier on the other, because he’s not suffering any more.

“He was a big strong man in his day. But waiting on the operation he got frailer and frailer and frailer. I’m not (blaming anyone) but for him to wait so long at his age and when he was in so much pain, the system is broken.”