Butter knife bad bet for do-it-yourself hernia repair, California man learns

Flickr/Simon Doggett

(CBS/AP) Surgeons? Scalpels? Who needs 'em? A California man with a painful hernia sliced open his own belly with a butter knife in a bid at self-surgery.

It didn't quite work.

The wife of the 63-year-old Glendale man called paramedics on Sunday night and said her husband was using a knife to remove a protruding hernia, Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.  

"She said he had impaled himself with a knife," Lorenz said.

Officers found the man naked on a patio lounge chair outside his apartment with the 6-inch knife sticking out of his stomach. The man's wife told officers that her husband was upset about the hernia and wanted to take it out.

While waiting for paramedics, the sergeant said, the man pulled out the knife and stuffed a cigarette he was smoking into the bleeding, open wound. The unidentified man wasn't screaming or showing any signs of pain, the sergeant said.

"What he was thinking, I don't know," Lorenz said. "I don't know if he was cauterizing it (the wound). You just never know what to expect. I've seen self-mutilation, but not a maneuver like this."

Based on his actions and statements from the wife, Lorenz said the man was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center - for a psychiatric evaluation.

Most people with hernias choose outpatient over DIY surgery. Some surgeons perform so-called open surgery, making the necessary incision with a scalpel. Others perform mininimally invasive surgery, which makes use of a thin lighted tube known as a laparoscope.

But butter knives? Not so much.

WebMD has more on hernia surgery.

[babygirl22657]

I used to have BC/BS insurance when I lived back in the midwest; that was like "royalty" there. Wonder if they would fix me if "I" had insurance out here? I've been bounced to 5 surgeons and I've been in between the "urgent and emergent" stage for OVER a year now. I used to be a nurse, but am now retired. I DO NOT encourage anyone to do self-surgical repair, but I will say...I totally understand the man's frustration. He just wanted to be fixed. Surgeons should not be able to "pick n choose" of whom or what......sometimes surgery is what people need no matter what. My mother, whom is also a retired cardiac nurse, always had her own saying of..."when all else fails, ASK THE PATIENT!".....Ty

[rf35]

His insurance probably said they wouldn't cover it since a hernia is usually caused by a tear in one of the weakened spots on the abdominal wall where the testes descended, thereby making it a "pre-existing condition." For-profit health care and insurance at its best.

[ccdsswrkr08]

Welcome to the world of no health care benefits.

[hsinco-2009]

Welcome to the US of A without a safety net.

Get used to it, this will be more common.

[skeezix06]

That's a scary man. I hope they keep him in the hospital for a while.