Police: Man attempted own hernia surgery with butter knife

[Andrew49]

Police in California said a 63-year-old man is recovering after he apparently tried to use a butter knife to remove a hernia from his own stomach. Glendale police said they responded to a call from the man's wife and arrived at his home Monday to find him naked on an outside lounge chair with the handle of a 6-inch butter knife protruding from his stomach. Sgt. Tom Lorenz said the man, whose name was not released, pulled the knife out while waiting for paramedics and shoved a lit cigarette into the wound. Link

The man's wife told police he had become frustrated by his protruding hernia and attempted to cut it out of his own stomach.

Senile agitation or what?

[C. Flower]

The man's wife told police he had become frustrated by his protruding hernia and attempted to cut it out of his own stomach.

Senile agitation or what?

Desperation with the failure of Medicare.

An old surgeon told me that after the National Health Service was started up in Britain, they spent 12 months clearing up a backlog of hernias. The bottom dropped out of the market for trusses.

[C. Flower]

I rest my case.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM6UnQ451Tw"]‪Sick Man Robs Bank For $1 to get Medical Treatment‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

[Buddha]

The man's wife told police he had become frustrated by his protruding hernia and attempted to cut it out of his own stomach.

Senile agitation or what?

No Andrew, fecking sheer desperation. I nearly died when I saw your post, really! The number of times I have held a knife and looked at the mound from the Incisional Hernia I have had now for nearly two years, and thought to myself, "I'll just slice the whole bloody thing off", because I sure as hell don't want to live any longer like this. I used to walk miles and climb hills and run with my dogs before 2009. Now because of the MRSA infection which they cannot be bothered to cure, they won't operate.

So, yes, maybe dementia alright, but I understand that man perfectly. I don't hold a butter knife though. I actually bought a a carving knife and then took it to the shop, you know, the key cutting place, to have it sharpened. I just want to look normal again. The thoughts that go through one's head sometimes seem extraordinarily "sensible" at times.

[Andrew49]

No Andrew, fecking sheer desperation. I nearly died when I saw your post, really! The number of times I have held a knife and looked at the mound from the Incisional Hernia I have had now for nearly two years, and thought to myself, "I'll just slice the whole bloody thing off", because I sure as hell don't want to live any longer like this. I used to walk miles and climb hills and run with my dogs before 2009. Now because of the MRSA infection which they cannot be bothered to cure, they won't operate.

So, yes, maybe dementia alright, but I understand that man perfectly. I don't hold a butter knife though. I actually bought a a carving knife and then took it to the shop, you know, the key cutting place, to have it sharpened. I just want to look normal again. The thoughts that go through one's head sometimes seem extraordinarily "sensible" at times.

I know my duodenal ulcers used to paralyse me with pain when I was a child. I remember stuffing and eating the front page of the Irish Press in order to put something in my stomach .... it actually worked as the pains were muted! .... CJ Haughey was on that front page pontificating about the £pound's devaluation. I was only in the early 80s though that the diagnosis was made! I was a Toolmaker & Turner/Fitter in and engineering works and had actually drawn up plans to make a tool that I could use to make an incision just above my stomach where the pain was - and cut out whatever was still causing me agony!

Luckily though I collapsed while taking my 12-year-old son home from the library - he took me to the nearest doctor on that road. It was a young doctor and he put me on a drugs program ... basically an anti-bacteria + an anti-biotic along with a souped up Bisodol tablet every day for 6 weeks .... .... after that it was one Zantac a day for about 6 months and I haven't looked back since. After treatment ended X-rays with Barium meal showed a huge amount of scar tissue on my stomach walls.

From my memory of being in the Irish Defence Forces about one-third of soldiers appeared to have ulcers! And it appears many stomach ulcers are caused by living in bad conditions! The industrial schools were ratty - so were some of the military barracks!

[Dr. FIVE]

2 years I'm waiting for a hernia op.

pass me the spoon!

[Holly]

The poor man is clearly deranged.

[C. Flower]

The poor man is clearly deranged.

I beg to differ. The only odd thing in this story is the "butter knife" which is a blunt instrument, designed to spread, not cut.

If he is deranged, it is very likely because he has untreated illnesses.

In Egypt in the spring, I had long conversations with doctors who were working in the field hospitals ( there was one full hospital and 3 clinics ). Medical costs, and dental, are way above the reach of even most of the middle class there. People get maddened and heart broken over agonies of untreated toothache and other painful conditions. When the clinics were open at Tahrir Square, they gave free treatment and people came in with all sorts of untreated ailments and got them fixed.

There are people in Ireland who die of perfectly treatable illness, and who walk around with tooth pain because they can't afford the dentist.

[Andrew49]

I beg to differ. The only odd thing in this story is the "butter knife" which is a blunt instrument, designed to spread, not cut.

If he is deranged, it is very likely because he has untreated illnesses.

In Egypt in the spring, I had long conversations with doctors who were working in the field hospitals ( there was one full hospital and 3 clinics ). Medical costs, and dental, are way above the reach of even most of the middle class there. People get maddened and heart broken over agonies of untreated toothache and other painful conditions. When the clinics were open at Tahrir Square, they gave free treatment and people came in with all sorts of untreated ailments and got them fixed.

There are people in Ireland who die of perfectly treatable illness, and who walk around with tooth pain because they can't afford the dentist.

There are 5,400 premature deaths annually on this island due to health inequalities and deprivation. Politics of death That's 15 people each and every day. Not quite a bus load but certainly more deaths a day than say, deaths from a private plane crash landing at an airport. Yet the plane crash would command huge media attention!

‘Eliminating Health Inequalities - A Matter of Life and Death

[Holly]

I beg to differ. The only odd thing in this story is the "butter knife" which is a blunt instrument, designed to spread, not cut.
....

The only odd thing??? What about pulling the knife out while waiting for paramedics and shoved a lit cigarette into the wound?

[Buddha]

The only odd thing??? What about pulling the knife out while waiting for paramedics and shoved a lit cigarette into the wound?

I tell you Holly, it makes perfect sense to me, well, not perfect. I wouldn't have used a butter knife but that just shows he did not think the thing out. It's so awful, this alien "thing" that you just want rid, anyway. Maybe he thought the lit cigarette would cauterise the wound, thus stopping the bleeding. Sensible.

But as has been said here already, in different ways, when you have to shove your head into the pillow and scream and bite until the spasms go, you will sometimes go to any lengths to end it, all of it.

[morticia]

And it appears many stomach ulcers are caused by living in bad conditions! The industrial schools were ratty - so were some of the military barracks!

Oh dear, my sympathies

It is now known (for perhaps the last decade or so) that ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori infections and can be treated with antibiotics.

To think of the number of people who were all told it was down to "controlling stress"

sigh. The bad conditions make perfect sense, I'm afraid. Bugs thrive in them.

[Andrew49]

Oh dear, my sympathies

It is now known (for perhaps the last decade or so) that ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori infections and can be treated with antibiotics.

To think of the number of people who were all told it was down to "controlling stress"

sigh. The bad conditions make perfect sense, I'm afraid. Bugs thrive in them.

The guy who discovered those facts actually drank a cup of bacteria to prove his theory - he did get ulcers AND a Nobel Prize! I was one of the first to be treated this way - thanks to my 12-year old son I'm alive, because my own doctor (who was elderly) did say that it was stress and worry and 'put the past behind you for god's sake'!!

In Ferryhouse we also used to do a crude form of acupuncture by sticking darning needles under the nails of our small fingers ... for some reason our hands and feet became warm as a result!! Chewing the bark of Chinese willow I now know DOES get rid of headaches ,,,, but might lead to stomach bleeds!

[Andrew49]

... also nothing wrong with stress either - it's distress that is bad. At that time I was cutting steel and iron on a lathe and each piece was held to plus or minus one-thousand-of-an-inch. I thrived on that kind of pressure. I remember milling platinum to within plus or minus one millimetre ... with security guards (Israeli trained) on hand with hand hoovers to collect the dust! Never felt any stress on those kinds of jobs. Never scrapped a job either.

[morticia]

... also nothing wrong with stress either - it's distress that is bad. At that time I was cutting steel and iron on a lathe and each piece was held to plus or minus one-thousand-of-an-inch. I thrived on that kind of pressure. I remember milling platinum to within plus or minus one millimetre ... with security guards (Israeli trained) on hand with hand hoovers to collect the dust! Never felt any stress on those kinds of jobs. Never scrapped a job either.

Good for you. I do a lot of microscope and fine manipulation work, that sort of thing takes a lot of concentration and skill (but can be fun!).

and full marks to your son. Probably grown up now (or almost), I'd imagine!!