A California man tried to operate on his own hernia with a 15cm butter knife.
A 63-year-old California man tried to operate on his own hernia by
cutting open his stomach with a 15cm butter knife, police say.
The
man was apparently frustrated with the painful medical condition, and
took matters into his own hands - alarming his wife, who immediately
called 911.
'She said her husband was trying to remove a hernia.
He was frustrated,' said Sergeant Tom Lorenz of Glendale police, east
of Los Angeles, after the incident on Sunday.
'Pending arrival of paramedics, he removed the butter knife himself,' he said on Tuesday.The
man was placed on a psychiatric hold - a legal term meaning confining a
patient to prevent them from self-injury - and taken to hospital where
he was reported to be in a stable condition.But doctors said he had probably only made his condition worse.
'It
is absolutely impossible for someone to fix their own hernia,' Sam
Carvajal, a surgeon at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, was quoted as
saying by the Los Angeles Times newspaper.
'Obviously, there is
some amount of psychosis going on,' said Carvajal, adding that
repairing a hernia is relatively easy, and usually takes about 20-30
minutes for a trained surgeon.
