Channel 4 Super Surgeons: A Chance at Life airs heartbreaking moment doctors realise they can’t save young dad

Super Surgeons: A Chance at Life goes behind-the-scenes at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in its Chelsea site. Viewers of the Channel 4 documentary get the chance to see innovative robotic surgery as surgeons tackle some of the world’s most complex and challenging oncological cases.

The first episode of the new series airs tonight (June 18) and features eight different patients. However, one man is given devastating news after his operation doesn't go to plan.

In one heartbreaking moment cancer surgeons at the London hospital realise they won't be able to save a young dad's life. NHS consultants had been hoping to remove a tumour from Cameron O’Connor's stomach before they discovered his cancer had spread more than they realised.

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The first episode follows Cameron, 42, and his wife Jo, 47, who are parents to nine-year-old daughter, Ava. Professor David Nicol, Chief of Surgery at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital and Consultant Urological Surgeon, is leading the team treating Cameron whose cancer originated in the testicles.

The series offers candid insights from the surgeons on how they prepare for and carry out challenging operations, then deal with the mental strain when they go wrong. Cameron's scans did not show the extent of the spread of the tumour and Prof Nicol wasn’t sure what he was going to find.

The footage of the surgeon's operating and trying to save Cameron's life are extraordinary as Prof Nicol and his colleagues search through the patient's bowels. He discovered that the cancer had spread to the mesentery that contains the bowel blood vessels.

After finding that his tumour has entwined with the bowel, Prof Nicol calls in colleagues to consult with them as to whether he should halt the surgery. In the operating theatre, Prof Nicol tells the TV cameras: "This might be worse than I thought it was. It’s into the small bowel."

He adds: "Essentially he’s got infiltration of tumour into the blood supply to his small bowel. We’d need to resect completely remove the small intestine which then leaves you with very little gut."

It became clear he would have to remove the small intestine and that would result in a very low quality of life for Cameron, hooked up to a machine for several hours a day to get intravenous fluids.

There was also no point operating unless all the tumour could be removed and he could not be certain of doing so. He paused and consulted a colleague who is a bowel expert.

“You’ve got to be sure", Prof. Nicol says: "You can’t rush to answer. Because inevitably sometimes when you reflect on it, you question yourself — could I have tried a bit harder?”

After calling off the surgery and breaking the bad news to Cameron, a clearly devastated Prof Nicol speaks to camera and looks visibly upset. He says: "Knowing when to stop is a really important part of surgical decision making.

"It’s not an outcome that certainly Cameron would have wanted and he, his wife and family obviously are now confronted with a very different situation with what they hoped for. But not proceeding with Cameron’s operation was the right thing to do."

The surgeon adds: "You’ve just got to back yourself that you can deliver. You can question yourself about it afterwards, but you have to have the confidence that you will make this decision at the time of surgery."

Later, Cameron wakes up to find out the operation was not successful with his wife, Jo, by his side. Four months after four months after the operation, at the end of February this year, having just turned 43, Cameron passed away, reports The Sun.

*Super Surgeons: A Chance at Life airs tonight (Tues 18) at 9pm on Channel 4. Episodes can also be downloaded on www.channel4.com