DIY Surgery

[Mighty_Emperor]

People who do the cutting all by themselves:

Woman performs own caesarean to save baby

Wednesday, April 7, 2004 Posted: 1656 GMT (0056 HKT)


(Reuters) -- A pregnant woman in Mexico gave birth to a healthy baby boy after performing a caesarean section on herself with a kitchen knife, doctors said on Tuesday.

It is thought to be the first known case of a self-inflicted caesarean in which both the mother and baby survived.

The unidentified 40-year-old, who lived in a rural area without electricity, running water or sanitation that was an eight-hour drive from the nearest hospital, performed the operation when she could not deliver the baby naturally.

She had lost a previous baby due to labor complications.

"She took three small glasses of hard liquor and, using a kitchen knife, sliced her abdomen in three attempts...and delivered a male infant that breathed immediately and cried," said Dr R.F. Valle, of the Dr Manuel Velasco Suarez Hospital in San Pablo, Mexico.

Valle recounted the event in a report in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

Before losing consciousness the woman told one of her children to call a local nurse for help. After the nurse stitched the wound with a sewing needle and cotton thread, the mother and baby were transferred and treated by Valle and his colleagues at the nearest hospital.

"This case represents an unusual and extraordinary decision by a woman in labour who, unable to deliver herself spontaneously, and with no medical help or resources, decided to perform a caesarean section upon herself," Valle said.

He added that a mother's instinct to save her child can move a woman to perform extraordinary acts but said it would not have been necessary if adequate medical care had been available.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/04/06/health.caesarean.reut/index.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

This is a pretty nuts story anyway (I wonder why he id that with their hearts - part of the same madness?) and then he makes it all a bit crazier:

Tuesday, April 6, 2004 · Last updated 7:59 p.m. PT

Murder suspect plucks out own eye in jail

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SHERMAN, Texas -- A jailed man accused of killing and cutting out the hearts of his son, estranged wife and her daughter plucked out his own eye and then quoted from the Bible, officials said Tuesday.

Andre L. Thomas was in a county jail cell Friday night when he tore his eye out of its socket with his hands, said Grayson County Sheriff Keith Gary.

Thomas, 21, then quoted the verse Mark 9:47: "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell."

Thomas was taken to a hospital and the eyeball was put on ice, but it could not be reattached. He is now being held in restraints at the jail, the sheriff said.

Thomas is accused in the March 26 stabbing deaths of his 4-year-old son, his 20-year-old estranged wife and her 1-year-old daughter. All the victims' hearts were cut out; two were found at Andre Thomas' house. He turned himself in and was charged with one count of capital murder.

A judge ruled Monday that Thomas will be evaluated by a mental health professional.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=BRF Plucked Eyeball

 

[OldTimeRadio]

More DIY Surgery

There is a well-known story from the mid-19th Century American West of a frontier nurse, just about the only woman in town and no physician, who diagnosed her own breast cancer, locked herself in her hotel room, and successfully removed the diseased organ.

 

[MrRING]

Tezuka Osamu's Black Jack is a comic strip about a super surgeon:

Dressed in black vest, black coat, and carrying a black bag, he almost looks like a late 19th century doctor. But his surgical techniques are far ahead of his time. A medical genius, he has done "miracles" such as operating on 17 people at once, doing complicated surgery by himself --- and even operating on himself via mirror once or twice. But the world, as a whole, hates him, for his prices are exorbitant, often in the tens of thousands of dollars (or higher). He is outwardly cold and downright condescending. Yet, beneath the hard exterior is a warmer side, sometimes all but forgotten by even himself, as well as the soul of a doctor.