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

Torture Week!!

So, in the vein of Discovery Channel's Shark Week, Horrible Things that Happen to People brings you Torture Week.  Or actually, more like Torture Fortnight, since I don't post every single day, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it as "Torture Week."  Mm, Torture Week.

I'm starting off with a review of The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Throughout History,
by Daniel Diehl and Mark P. Donnelly.  (I got it at the Ren Faire.  There were multiple books on the topic, but this seemed like the best.)

The book is laid out really well.  It starts out with a chapter on the philosophy behind torture (ie, "why do people do it?"), then a couple chapters on torture throughout different ages in Europe, a chapter on torture in the rest of the world, an encyclopedia of torture (!!), and closes with a "what does it all mean" type of thing.  It's got beautiful glossy pictures, a couple on each page, and two sets pages of gorgeous color photos. It's well written, and really interesting.  I really can't recommend it enough for people like me (and likely people like you, if you are reading this).

A few small drawbacks: One, it doesn't touch on torture in the 20th century at all.  The authors state that it would take an entire other book, which may be true, but I want to read that other book!  Two, it's more than a bit Euro-centric.  True, they have a chapter devoted to torture around the world, but that's one chapter for all the rest of the world for all of time.  But I already knew a lot about torture in Europe, and I really would have liked to learned more about torture in Asia, and Africa, and in America prior to white people getting all up in everyone's business.  They did not mention anything about Native America. 

The last problem I had with it is a little nit-picky.  I will never get used to seeing "Magna Charta," even though Wikipedia says it's an acceptable spelling.  In addition, they often misspell "grisly" as "grizzly."  WTF, YOUR BOOK IS ABOUT TORTURE.  MAYBE YOU SHOULD LEARN TO SPELL "GRISLY" BEFORE YOU START WRITING IT.

So overall, I really recommend it.  Coming up, I am going to focus on some of the different torture methods mentioned in the book and some others from the 20th century.

Overall: 4/5 skulls

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!