An egregious medical mistake

If there were an award for the Worst Description of a Medical Procedure in a Novel, I would nominate this dialogue:

"Does it really take twenty minutes from here to Lundeby?"

"Yes, unfortunately, it does.  And twenty minutes back.  They didn't have personnel with them who could perform a tracheotomy.  If they had, he might have been saved."

"What are you talking about now?"

"About going in between two vertebrae and opening up the windpipe from the outside."

"You mean cutting open his throat?"

"Yes, It's actually quite simple.  And it might have saved his life..."

Of course he would have been left quadriplegic after they dissected their way past his spinal column.

My wife found this passage in Chapter 13 of Karin Fossum's otherwise-enjoyable "Don't Look Back."