Geoffrey Cheney was a consultant oral and maxillo-facial surgeon who made headlines in May 1995 for his successful operations to remove a bullet from the right-hand sinus cavity of an African war orphan, Tenneh Cole.

Tenneh was flown from war-ravaged Sierra Leone for treatment at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital through the generosity of readers of the Eastern Daily Press. Now a well-adjusted, happy young woman, Tenneh is living in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and still benefits from the kindness of the Hope and Homes children's charity.

Cheney studied medicine and dentistry at Guy's Hospital in London before becoming a senior registrar at the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead, West Sussex, where he developed his interest in maxillo-facial surgery. He also trained at the Eastman Dental Hospital in Central London. Earlier, he had served in the Royal Navy, during which he witnessed the explosion of the second American hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific. Later in his career he and another naval officer went inside the crater caused by the first atomic explosion in the Nevada Desert. He retained his interests in the Royal Navy with involvement in the Royal Naval Reserve.

While a consultant at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, Cheney also held clinics at the James Paget Hospital at Gorleston and at the former Deneside Hospital in Great Yarmouth as well as at Cromer Hospital.

When he retired in December 1997 after 22 years' service, he continued in private practice and also as regional director of postgraduate dental education.

Cheney was a charming, genial man who enjoyed the warmest professional relationships with fellow surgeons and consultants. He appeared completely taken aback by all the attention which his successful operations on Tenneh Cole attracted and remarked quietly: “I had a feeling there wasn't much news on that particular day. I think it was a combination of a stunning X-ray, showing the bullet lodged behind the eye, and a slightly dull Bank Holiday Monday.”

His second wife, Susie, predeceased him by five years. He leaves two stepchildren.

Geoffrey Cheney, consultant oral and maxillo-facial surgeon, was born on December 13, 1935. He died of a stroke on May 13, 2008, aged 72