Review: When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind I & II

Tonight on the Discovery Health channel I watched When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind, parts I and II.  Objects left in a patient after surgery is a major problem, as about 1,500 people in the U.S. alone learn first hand every year (source). There is even a national safety project devoted to preventing retained surgical objects, No Thing Left Behind, which details safety procedures such as "Sponge Accounting" (apparently two thirds of the objects left behind are sponges, called gossypiboma; the sponges are tiny little gauze things that look like tissue once they're soaked with blood).   These objects can cause severe complications down the road, including pain and infection, and when the body encapsulates the object in tissue, they can be mistaken for tumors.

Among the retained objects featured in the show were a retractor (a metal object about the size and shape of a ruler), sponges and gauze, a plastic tube (left shoved down a kid's throat!) and a 9-inch clamp.  In one case the object caused an infection by flesh-eating bacteria (which was cured by packing the wound with bleach-soaked gauze) and another caused gangrene of the ribs. Other common side effects were depression, PTSD, and painkiller addiction.

Overall, the show was pretty mediocre, with the sequel being slightly better than the first.  It was fairly informative-- it explained the procedure of counting surgical equipment before and after an operation, and showed a new way of using barcodes to do so.  It also gave a lot of good background information about the likelihood and risk factors for having a tool left behind.  But many of the cases ran into each other after the first twenty minutes.  I found myself wishing they featured more large objects, or else a wider variety of objects (which the second did, I suppose).  Even though sponges were the most common, and could cause just as terrible complications, they got a bit old to watch.  I would definitely still recommend it if nothing else was on, but I wish I'd watched Doctor Who instead.

Overall: 2.5/5 skulls

Horrible Things That Happen to Dogs

As promised, here's the second post for today. It's not about people, so it doesn't completely fit the theme of the site, but it certainly is horrible.

Here you will find the story of Tara the Labrador, who got her tongue caught in a shredder. You know, the thing you use to shred old bills/ junk mail with your info/ evidence of your tax fraud? Apparently it also shreds puppy-dog tongues.

The dog was screaming after getting her tongue stuck trying to lick out some cookie crumbs. It was a gory scene, as could be expected: ""We thought maybe she'd just shredded the tip of her tongue, then the younger one said what we thought was congealed blood was actually part of her tongue," said her owner, Linda Brown.

Tara lost a third of her tongue, and had to have it amputated, but other than that she is okay.

Beautiful.

This is just a wonderful list, brought to you by Wikipedia, StumbleUpon, and the number Q.

List of Unusual Deaths

Related is List of People Who Died in the Bathroom

Gotta love it.

Note: I cannot vouch for the veracity of the above articles, since they are, y'know, on Wikipedia.

True (and not-so-true) myths

I'm going to start this off with a quick post about one of my favorite topics: urban legends. And, of course, I love them even more when they're true. Here are some highlights (of the true ones, of course) from the "Freakish Fatalities" section at snopes.com:

• Two men lose arms during a game of "tug-of-war"
• Killing waves of both beer and molasses (separate incidents)
• A homemade bomb with playing card ammo
• Personal favorite #1: In 1981, a David Kirwan jumped into a hot spring at Yellowstone (one measured at upwards of 200 F!) to rescue his friend's dog. While noble, this was also incredibly stupid. He reached the dog, but ultimately had to give it up in order to escape the spring. He was blind, his skin was peeling, and he suffered 3rd degree burns to 100% of his body. He died less than 24 hours later. The dog, Moosie, didn't make it, either.
• Personal favorite #2: This is one of my all-time favorites. In 1986, Lake Nyos belched out a huge, extremely deadly cloud of carbon dioxide. It reached 12 miles around the lake, and killed 1,746 people (as well as many cows). This shit kills instantly. No warning. You just fall down, dead. Carbon dioxide was also a major worry for coal miners, since they could hit a pocket of it at any time (canaries didn't help; those were for carbon monoxide-- by the time you could notice an animal dying of carbon dioxide, you'd be dead, too) .
• Lastly, in the Halloween spirit, we have several stories of teenagers dying in gallows/hanging stunts gone awry (at least awry in some sense; they probably were extremely effective in their goal of freaking people out).

All of these and more can be found here. And check the rest of the site out, it's awesome!