PICTURES: 19 Most Shocking X-Rays Slide Show (A misplaced flashlight among others)

CBS ^ | 8-2-10 | CBS Staff

[Mikey_1962]

What's the most embarrassing thing you could imagine doing with a can of condensed milk?

How about having to ask a doctor to remove it from your rectum - because you stuck it there in a misguided stab at self-stimulation?

Sounds like fiction, but it happened in real life. CBS News has the X-ray to prove it.

And it's not the only shocking X-ray out there. From screwdrivers in the skull to children impaled on car antennas or with pins caught in their throats, doctors come across some pretty amazing images.

This batch has been generously provided by Dr. Tim B. Hunter, professor of radiology at the University of Arizona, who interesting x-rays.

[Stoat]

I remember reading an article about this once. Lightbulbs are bad because you can't get a good grip on them with forceps, but the worst was Barbie dolls. They slide in easy headfirst, but when you try to pull them out, the arms raise.

One approach for lightbulb removal from the rectum, which can also be applied to some other objects, is the use of two large spoons held together like tongs, such as tablespoons from the hospital cafeteria.  They allow the doc not only to gain a purchase on the object but also provide an opportunity to reduce compression on the bulb during extraction and hopefully prevent breakage.
Don't try it at home  ;-)

And everyone tries to use the "I slipped in the bathroom" story. 

It's amusing that a vast number of breathtakingly stupid people automatically assume that everyone else is just as stupid as they are; even people who have spent half their lives involved in intense, oftentimes punishing learning regimens.

This is frequently seen in the cases of homosexuals who get carried away with foreign object insertion as well as with Democrats when they say most anything at all.

Coincidence?  hmmmm....

[TheOldLady]

Ew.

[Slings and Arrows]

Ain’t humanity grand?

[Billthedrill]

Uh...so what...uh...happens to the spoons? I mean, they don’t just send the surgical nurse back into the cafeteria to sneak them back into the little plastic buckets...do they?

[TheOldLady]

It may be more a question of, "Exactly how high/drunk/stoned do you have to be to hit a flashlight?" Less than for a can of condensed milk, but more than for a potato?

[a fool in paradise]

Here's one doctor voicing in on this subject:

The X-Rays of Others (Dr. Elaine Schattner is an oncologist, journalist and breast cancer survivor Posted: June 25, 2010 12:00 PM)

When Monroe was hospitalized in 1954, medical privacy laws were essentially non-existent. Now, a physician would have to ask a patient's permission before displaying her films before a classroom of students, on TV or the Web. The images would be stripped of any identifying labels.

This story, on patient's rights and privacy, relates to that of another woman who received care in the same era. Henrietta Lacks, the subject of Rebecca Skloot's current best-seller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, died of cervical cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. She was 31 years old and had five children. Without her explicit consent, physicians took malignant, ever-replicating cells from her tumor to establish valuable cell lines that have been used -- and sold -- for medical research ever since, while the family stayed impoverished for decades.

It seems ironic that Monroe, who was hospitalized for gynecological reasons and died childless, has no descendants to hold her records near, to intervene or somehow say "no, the x-rays are off-limits." Rather, it's her doctor's children who've cut the deal.

Would the parent of a child impailed on an antenna or a man with things in his rectum freely sign away his rights to keep such things off the web?

[Slings and Arrows]

To determine guilt or innocence we’ll need to see the potato.

[Slings and Arrows]

To determine guilt or innocence we’ll need to see the potato.

[a fool in paradise]

There are plenty of discussions of those who know doctors who’ve kept such copies (just as the clerks at Walgreens swipe dupes of the funny photos they want to take home).

If they are all willing to state upfront that no rights were compromised and that the patients always gave informed consensual release of the images, then there is no case.

[Stoat]

Uh...so what...uh...happens to the spoons? I mean, they don’t just send the surgical nurse back into the cafeteria to sneak them back into the little plastic buckets...do they?

I'm guessing that this may hinge upon whether or not the patient care team thinks the reintroduction of the spoons into the hospital food chain might improve the food or not ;-)

[TheOldLady]

[Stoat]

To determine guilt or innocence we’ll need to see the potato.

 

 

[TheOldLady]

OH! I see that Stoat has provided her with a boyfriend, assuming he survives the bunny attack.

[a fool in paradise]

Ack! Was it a selfinflicted injury?

[MadelineZapeezda]

When I worked as an xray tech in Atlanta a guy came in with a 3 hooked fishing hook up his rectum....he had attached balls to it but they fell off as he was pulling it out and he lacerated his colon.

Another....in Pittsburgh area... was a girl who was raped by a coke bottle and it was stuck in her diaphragm after perforating her uterus

[Slings and Arrows]

Laz would hit it.

[Slings and Arrows]

So Mr Potatohead is bi?

[TheOldLady]

I know she’s a little flat chested, but don’t be mean, Slings.

Besides, you said Laz would hit it.

[massgopguy]

“Looking back in hindsight, my first mistake was lighting the match.”