Brickbat: Sawbones

Do Not Lick/Foter

In Scotland, the National Health Service is investigating claims that a surgeon used a "rusty hacksaw" to amputate a man's leg. According to Scottish media, the operation took place at Ayr Hospital. During the procedure, the surgeon found the man had a metal plate in his leg the surgical team had not known about. The surgeon sent someone to a nearby hardware store to get something to cut through the plate but the store was closed. Staff then located a saw in a hospital storeroom.

Comments

[db]

Nothing says “due diligence” like not bothering to x-ray your patient’s leg before major surgery.

[Suthenboy]

Why needlessly piss money away on an expensive X-ray when you are going to cut the leg open anyway?

Goddammit db, we are supposed to be bringing costs down here!

[UnCivilServant]

Four x-rays and a medical exam ran me $66 at an urgent care clinic. Luckily there were no broken bones found, or it might have been $100 to have them put on a cast too.

[briannnnn]

Hmmm, one emergency room visit for a broken shoulder ran me $2,000 this year after the insurance adjustment. Half of that was for 1mg of Dilaudid…I want your insurance!!!

[Suthenboy]

God save the NHS! Single payer for the win.

When are we going to have single payer like the rest of the civilized world?

[Hugh Akston]

Well to be fair, how could they possibly have known he had a plate in his leg before they sawed it open?

[db]

They had to slash the leg to see what was in it.

[WTF]

“I’m a doctor, Jim, not a carpenter!”

[Rich]

The Hospital of Ayr ….

[Suthenboy]

This reminds me of an account from the crusades I read years ago. Some young crusader was wounded in battle. He took an arrow to the knee or some such. To avoid the kid dying from gangrene his fellow crusaders held him down and hacked his leg off at mid-thigh with a dull axe. They had to hack at the femur several times to shatter it. The poor bastard died almost immediately afterward while screaming.

I ask again, when will we have single payer like the rest of the civilized world?

[Monty Crisco]

Paints the expression “surgical precision” in a whole new light, eh?

[Rich]

That hacksaw focused like a *laser*!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Why. Won’t. You. Cut. Damn. You. Femur!

[Slammer]

“I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee.”

[Rich]

Sheesh, it was an *amputation*. Why didn’t they just cut *above* the plate?

[Swiss Servator, Kaffee bitte!]

IF ITS NOT SCOTTISH, ITS CRAP!

[Monty Crisco]

He’s Phil McCracken, Scottish Therapist!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I posted before reading so…duplicate warning down below!

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The word is “shite”

[Charles Easterly]

I seriously doubt that they had the machine that goes “bing” at Ayr Hospital.

We have one at ours.

[UnCivilServant]

Did they sell it on a leaseback option?

[Charles Easterly]

Bing!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

If it’s not Scottish it’s crap!

[Swiss Servator, Kaffee bitte!]

AYE!

[cavalier973]

Everything I read concerning Scotland makes me think that Longshanks had the right idea.

[UnCivilServant]

Wales should be ruled from London?

[OneOut]

what’s everyone bitching about ?

At least they cut off the right leg.

Or was it the left ?

[UnCivilServant]

At this point I’m wondering if amputation was acutally called for, or if the NHS hacks didn’t know enough medicine to get employed at a real facility.

[Charles Easterly]

What you did there, UnCivil, I saw through.

[Steve G]

*applies gauze*

[Charles Easterly]

*narrows gauze*

[Tejicano]

Having read about a number of cases where a hospital amputated the wrong limb I have vowed to myself that if I ever do need to have a limb hacked off I will have somebody bring me a magic marker and write all over the opposite, good limb “NOT THIS LEG – CUT THE OTHER ONE – KEEP THIS LEG ATTACHED….” in large, clearly legible font.

[Rich]

I’ve seen many such left/right thingies where one is marked with just an “X”.

“I can never remember. Is that the one to remove, or the one *not* to remove? Oh, well, ….”

[sarcasmic]

I’ve had surgery on my hand a couple times. Before the surgery someone would come up to me, say “Which hand?”, and then mark it with a big X. Just in case.

[db]

http://youtu.be/M8AGy5dh9-w

[Charles Easterly]

A patient angrily left the hospital when the man next to him (both were awaiting different surgeries) was arguing with – and trying to convince – the nurses which leg of his they were supposed to amputate.

I certainly cannot fault him.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I shudder to think what they’d do if the patient had a head injury.

[mattcid]

Whiners, all of you. This is fine Scottish ingenuity. And I bet they even sterilized it a bit first.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I bet they at least sterilized their mouths with whiskey.

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[WTF]

Rectum? Damn near killed ‘im!

[Charles Easterly]

+1 Chris Farely and hot wings