US man tries to repair hernia with butter knife
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A 63-year-old California man tried to operate on his own hernia by cutting open his stomach with a six-inch butter knife, police said on Tuesday.
The man was apparently frustrated with the painful medical condition, and took matters into his own hands, alarming his wife, who immediately called 911.
"She said her husband was trying to remove a hernia. He was frustrated," said Sergeant Tom Lorenz of Glendale police, east of Los Angeles, after the incident on Sunday.
"Pending arrival of paramedics, he removed the butter knife himself," he told the media.
The man was placed on a psychiatric hold, a legal term meaning confining a patient to prevent them from self-injury and taken to hospital where he was reported to be in a stable condition.
But doctors said he had probably only made his condition worse.
"It is absolutely impossible for someone to fix their own hernia," Sam Carvajal, a surgeon at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times newspaper.
"Obviously, there is some amount of psychosis going on," said Carvajal, adding that repairing a hernia is relatively easy, and usually takes about 20-30 minutes for a trained surgeon.
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