5 Unbelievable Medical Mistakes (PART 2)

Hospital makes a wrong-sided brain surgery... for the third time in a year

For the third time on the same year, doctors at Rhode Island Hospital have operated on the wrong side of a patient's head. The most recent incident occurred Nov. 23 2007. An 82-year-old woman required an operation to stop bleeding between her brain and her skull. A neurosurgeon at the hospital began a surgery by drilling the right side of the patient's head, even though a CT scan showed bleeding on the left side, according to local reports. The resident reportedly caught his mistake early, after which he closed the initial hole and proceeded on the left side of the patient's head. The patient was listed in fair condition on Sunday.

The case echoes of a similar mistake last February, in which a different doctor operated on the wrong side of a patient's head. And last August, an 86-year-old man died three weeks after a surgeon at Rhode Island Hospital accidentally operated on the wrong side of his head.

The Surgeon who removed the wrong leg

In what was, perhaps, the most publicized case of a surgical mistake in its time, a Tampa (Florida) surgeon mistakenly removed the wrong leg of his patient, 52-year-old Willie King, during an amputation procedure in February 1995.

It was later revealed that a chain of errors before the surgery culminated in the wrong leg being prepped for the procedure. While the surgeon's team realized in the middle of the procedure that they were operating on the wrong leg, it was already too late, and the leg was removed. As a result of the error, the surgeon's medical license was suspended for six months and he was fined $10,000. University Community Hospital in Tampa, the medical center where the surgery took place, paid $900,000 to King and the surgeon involved in the case paid an additional $250,000 to King.

The healthy kidney removed by mistake

In St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a patient was submitted at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital to have one of his kidneys removed because it had a tumor believed to be cancerous. Instead, doctors removed the healthy one.

"The discovery that this was the wrong kidney was made the next day when the pathologist examined the material and found no evidence of any malignancy," said Samuel Carlson, M.D. and Park Nicollet Chief Medical Officer. The potentially cancerous kidney remained intact and functioning. For privacy and family's request, no details about the patient were released.

Wide-Awake Surgery led to his suicide

A West Virginia man's family claims inadequate anesthetic during surgery allowed him to feel every slice of the surgeon's scalpel - a trauma they believe led him to take his own life two weeks later. Sherman Sizemore was admitted to Raleigh General Hospital in Beckley, W.Va., Jan. 19, 2006 for exploratory surgery to determine the cause of his abdominal pain. But during the operation, he reportedly experienced a phenomenon known as anesthetic awareness -- a state in which a surgical patient is able to feel pain, pressure or discomfort during an operation, but is unable to move or communicate with doctors.

According to the complaint, anesthesiologists administered the drugs to numb the patient, but they failed to give him the general anesthetic that would render him unconscious until 16 minutes after surgeons first cut into his abdomen. Family members say the 73-year-old Baptist minister was driven to kill himself by the traumatic experience of being awake during surgery but unable to move or cry out in pain.

Not so funny: wrong artery bypassed

Two months after a double bypass heart operation that was supposed to save his life, comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member Dana Carvey got some disheartening news: the cardiac surgeon had bypassed the wrong artery. It took another emergency operation to clear the blockage that was threatening to kill the 45-year-old funnyman and father of two young kids. Responding to a $7.5 million lawsuit Carvey brought against him, the surgeon said he'd made an honest mistake because Carvey's artery was unusually situated in his heart. But Carvey didn't see it that way: "It's like removing the wrong kidney. It's that big a mistake," the entertainer told People magazine.

10 Most Bizarre Gaming Incidents

Woman was virtually raped in Second Life

A Belgian user of Second Life was forced, by using a so called “voodoo doll” --a piece of code that takes the form of a regular object as a cup or pen or whatever but in fact gives control of your avatar-- to perform sexually explicit behavior. In theory, a user must give his consent in order for other player to take control of his avatar, but using one of the above mentioned voodoo dolls and some persuasion you can make a user (especially a new one) to give access to his avatar. After the incident, Brussels' public prosecutor asked patrol detectives of the Federal Computer Crime Unit to go on Second Life to investigate the “virtual rape”.

Boy saves his sister from a moose attack with skills learned from World of Warcraft

A 12 year-old Norwegian boy saved his sister and himself from a moose attack using skills he picked up in the online role playing game 'World of Warcraft.' Hans Jurgen Olsen and his sister got into a spot of trouble when they encroached on the territory of one of these antlered cold weather staples (otherwise known as a moose). When the beast went on the offensive, Hans knew the first thing he had to do was taunt it so that it would leave his sister alone and she could run to safety. "Taunting" is a move one uses in World of Warcraft to get monsters off of the less-well-armored team members.

Once he was a target, Hans remember another skill he'd picked up at level 30 in 'World of Warcraft' -- he feigned death. The moose lost interest in the inanimate Hans and wandered off into the woods. When he was safely alone Hans ran back home to share his tale of video game-inspired survival.

Korean dies after game session

A South Korean man died in 2007 after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks. The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Starcraft at an internet cafe in the city of Taegu, according to South Korean authorities.

The man had not slept properly, and had eaten very little during his marathon session, said police. Identified as Lee, he started playing Starcraft and only paused playing to go to the toilet and for short periods of sleep.

The cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion. He was taken to hospital following his collapse, but died shortly after. He had recently been fired from his job because he kept missing work to play computer games.

Teenager gets DVT after a whole day with a console

A boy who spent an entire day kneeling down playing computer games needed hospital treatment for a blood clot in his leg. Dominic Patrick, 14, from Merseyside, developed deep vein thrombosis after a rainy day inside with a games console. The potentially dangerous condition was caused because Dominic had his legs tucked under his body.

Dominic noticed something was wrong when, after getting up from playing games all day, he got pins and needles in his legs and one of his calves swelled up. When this failed to go away, his father initially put it down to "growing pains", but eventually took him to a doctor, who diagnosed DVT.

Player of Legends of Mir 3 stabs fellow gamer to death

In March 2005, a Chinese man was stabbed to death in a row over a sword in online game Legends of Mir 3. Shanghai gamer Qiu Chengwei killed player Zhu Caoyuan when he discovered he had sold a "dragon sabre" he had been loaned. Mr Chengwei only got the powerful virtual weapon shortly before it was sold for 7,200 yuan (£460). Before the attack Mr Chengwei told the police about the theft but had no response since the police said the weapon was not real property. The online gamer has been given a suspended death sentence for his crime.

10 Most Frightening Torture Techniques from the Middle Ages

The Breaking Wheel: Designed to render vicitim’s limbs useless

Also called The Catherine Wheel, this device always killed its victim, but did so very slowly. The victim's limbs were tied to the spokes of a large wooden wheel. The wheel was then slowly revolved while the torturer smashed the victims’ limbs with an iron hammer, breaking them in many places.

Once his bones were broken, he was left on the wheel to die. Sometimes the wheel was placed on a tall pole so birds could pick and eat the flesh of the still-living human. It could take up to two or three days for him to die of dehydration.

Sometimes it was 'mercifully' ordered that the executioner strike the criminal on the chest and stomach, blows known as the coups de grâce (French: "blow of mercy"), which caused lethal injuries, leading to the end of the death by torture.

The Knee Splitter: Severs the knees and other limbs

Another tool favoured by the Spanish Inquisition because of its versatility, was the knee splitter. It was a vice-like instrument with sharp spikes outfitted on both sides of the grip. As the torturer turned the handle, the claws slowly squeezed against each other mutilating and penetrating the skin and bones of the knee. Although its use rarely resulted in death, the effect was to render the knees completely useless. It was also used on other body parts including elbows, arms and even the lower legs.

The number of spikes the knee splitter contained varied from three to more than twenty. Some claws were heated beforehand to maximize pain - others had dozens of small claws that penetrated the flesh slowly and painfully.

Saw Torture: Common saw cuts victim in half

Saws were was common torture devices because they were readily found in most houses and no complex devices were required. It was a cheap way to torture and kill a victim accused of witchery, adultery, murder, blasphemy or even theft.

The victim was tied upside down, allowing blood to be diverted to the brain. This ensured that the victim maintained consciousness for as long as possible, it slowed the loss of blood and caused maximum humiliation. The torture could last several hours.

While some victims were cut completely in half as a symbolic gesture, most were only cut up to their abdomen to prolong the time it took to die.

The Rack: designed to dislocate every joint in its victim’s body

Who could forget the dreaded rack, commonly believed to be the most painful form of medieval torture? It consisted of a wooden frame usually with two ropes fixed to the bottom and another two tied to a handle in the top. As the torturer turned the handle, the ropes would pull the victim's arms, eventually dislocating bones with a loud crack. If the torturer kept turning the handles (they often went too far) some of the limbs were torn right off the body.

In the later Middle Ages, a new variant of rack appeared. Spikes were added that penetrated the victim's back when he or she were forced to lie on table. As the limbs were pulled apart, so was the spinal cord, increasing not only the physical pain, but the psychological pain of knowing that, even if he or she were to survive, mobility of any kind would be lost forever.

The Pear of Anguish: Rips orifices, dislocates jaw bones

This brutal instrument was used to torture women who performed abortions, liars, blasphemers and homosexuals. The pear-shaped instrument was inserted into one of the victim's orifices: the vagina for women, the anus for homosexuals and the mouth for liars and blasphemers.

The instrument consisted of four leaves that slowly separated from each other as the torturer turned the screw at the top. The device would tear the skin at the very least or expand to mutilate the victim’s orifice. It could dislocated or break the jawbones

Pears of Anguish still in existence are lavishly engraved or adorned to differentiate between the anal, vaginal and oral pears. This torture rarely brought death, but was often followed by other torture methods.

Judas Cradle: The victim’s orifice is painfully stretched, flesh ripped

The Judas Cradle was perhaps a little less sadistic than impalement but still gruesome. The victim’s anus or vagina would be placed over the point of the pyramid-shaped cradle, then lowered on it by ropes. The intended effect was to stretch the orifice over a long period of time, or to slowly impale.

The victim was usually naked, adding to the overall humiliation of the torture and sometimes weights were added to the legs to increase the pain and hasten death. This torture could last anywhere from a few hours to complete days. The device was rarely washed, so the victim could also be plagued with a painful infection.

Impalement: A sharp pole is pushed, bottom upwards, through the victim’s body

If you were Vlad the Impaler (more commonly known as Dracula) of 15th century Romania, you simply impaled your victims by forcing them to sit on a sharp and thick pole. The pole was then raised upright and the victim was left to slide further down the pole by his or her own weight.

Often, the pole would emerge through the sternum so that its tip could be placed under the chin to prevent further sliding. It could take the victim three days to die. Vlad did this to between 20,000 and 300,000. It is said he enjoyed having a meal while watching impalements.

The Head Crusher: Compresses the skull, shatters teeth, squeezes out the eyes

The head crusher was a popular torture method used by the Spanish Inquisition, among other users. The chin was placed over a bottom bar and the head under an upper cap. The torturer slowly turned the screw, pressing the bar against the cap. The head was then slowly compressed, first shattering the teeth into the jaw, then a slow death with agonizing pain. Some variants of this device included small containers that received the eyeballs as they were squeezed out of the victims’ eye sockets.

This instrument was an effective way to extract confessions, as the period of pain could be prolonged for many hours if the torturer chose to. If the torture was stopped midway, the victim often had irreparable damage done to the brain, jaw or eyes.

Coffin Torture: Torture in a metal cage, pecked at by preying birds

The Coffin Torture was feared in the Middle Ages, and is often seen in films depicting the time (see Monty Python’s Holy Grail). The victim was placed inside a metal cage roughly made in the shape of the human body. Torturers could force overweight victims into a smaller device, or even make the "coffin" slightly larger than a victim’s body to make him more uncomfortable. The cage was frequently hung from a tree or a gallows.

Serious crimes, such as heresy or blasphemy, were punished by death inside the coffin where the victim was placed under the sun allowing birds or animals to eat his or her flesh. Sometimes onlookers would throw rocks and other objects to further increase the pain.

The Breast Ripper: Painfully tears and mutilates a woman’s breast

Used as a horrible punishment for women, the breast ripper was used to inflict pain, blood loss and the mutilation of their breasts. It was usually used for women accused of conducting abortions or of adultery.

The claws were often placed, red hot, on the victim's exposed breasts, the spikes penetrating to achieve a powerful grasp. They were then pulled to rip off or shred the breasts. If the victim wasn't killed she would be scarred for life as her breasts were literally torn apart.

A common variant was known as "The Spider," which is a similar instrument attached to a wall. The victim's breasts were fixed to the claws and the woman was pulled by the torturer away from the wall, removing or mutilating them. This was a brutal punishment that often resulted in the victim's death.

World's Most Extreme Piercings

Every year during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar (September / October), Thais celebrate the Vegetarian Festival. It is believed that the festival and its accompanying sacred rituals bestow good fortune upon those who religiously observe this rite.

During this time, local residents of Chinese ancestry strictly observe a 10-day vegetarian or vegan diet for the purposes of spiritual cleansing and merit-making. Sacred rituals are performed at various Chinese shrines and temples and aesthetic displays, such as walking barefooted over hot coals and ascending ladders with bladed rungs are performed by entranced devotees known as "Ma Song".

The festival started in 1825 and its paricipants are not allowed to eat meat or have sex at the time of the festival. For obvious reasons participants are asked to use only sterile blades, spears and guns.

Meet Thailand's Phuket Vegetarian Festival.

















Every year during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar (September / October), Thais celebrate the Vegetarian Festival. It is believed that the festival and its accompanying sacred rituals bestow good fortune upon those who religiously observe this rite.

During this time, local residents of Chinese ancestry strictly observe a 10-day vegetarian or vegan diet for the purposes of spiritual cleansing and merit-making. Sacred rituals are performed at various Chinese shrines and temples and aesthetic displays, such as walking barefooted over hot coals and ascending ladders with bladed rungs are performed by entranced devotees known as "Ma Song".

The festival started in 1825 and its paricipants are not allowed to eat meat or have sex at the time of the festival. For obvious reasons participants are asked to use only sterile blades, spears and guns.

Meet Thailand's Phuket Vegetarian Festival.

8 Most Bizarre Body Modifications

Tongue bifurcation

One of the newest body modifications to hit the scene is tongue splitting, or tongue bifurcation. The process involves literally cutting the tongue in half directly down the center. Once the tongue is split it is possible to move both sections independently of one another.

Body Suspension

Body suspension is the act of suspending the human body via temporary piercings made just before the suspension process. The body is then raised either partially or completely from the ground by especially modified fishing hooks.

Pointy Ears

New York plastic surgoen Dr. Lajos Nagy created a surgical procedure to make human ears pointed, like a mythological creature. According to the doc, "ears becoming pointed as a result of plastic surgery not only enhance the attractiveness of the face, but also improve the experience of listening to music."

3D-Art Implant

A 3D-Art implant is any object implanted fully under the skin for the purpose of affecting a sculptural change of the surface. The "invention" and popularization of implants as 3D-Art is credited primarily to Steve Haworth. Implants can be stretched just like piercings. A good example of this are horn implants—they start as smaller implants, and are then taken out when healed and replaced with slightly larger ones. This process is repeated to achieve the final size. There are some risks of irritation to the skin above the implant if this process is pushed too fast, as with all stretching.

Eyeball Tattoo

Corneal tattooing is not only possible, but it has been known and done now for over 2,000 years — it became almost commonplace in the late 19th century and into the 20th century to correct defects such as corneal scarring and leucomas. These days, it is done less often because contact lenses are very effective at covering these defects, and prosthetic technology is also more accessible. However, not everyone can wear contact lenses, and not everyone wants their eyeball popped out even if it is blind; hence cosmetic tattooing of the eye.

Corset Piercings

One of the newest trends in body modification comes in the form of corset piercings. They are a series of surface piercings arranged up the back in two vertical columns. The piercing is located in the spot where the eyelets would be if one was wearing a corset. It is a symmetrical piercing with an equal number of holes on each side. As few as four holes can be used (two on each side) up to as many as the expanse of skin will allow.

Branding

The Human Branding is, perhaps, the most painful of all body modifications. In full-scale branding, the iron is heated hot enough and applied long enough that the resulting wound is a third degree burn, which destroys the nerve. These third-degree burns never regain sensitivity. It will make a silver scarred area in the shape of the third degree burn, due to destruction of the entire dermis layer of the skin. The surrounding skin will eventually fill in areas that haven’t been severely damaged, which takes years.

10 People with Unbelievable Medical Conditions

The Girl Who is Allergic to Water

Teenager Ashleigh Morris can't go swimming, soak in a hot bath or enjoy a shower after a stressful day's work - she's allergic to water. Even sweating brings the 19-year-old out in a painful rash.

Ashleigh, from Melbourne, Australia, is allergic to water of any temperature, a condition she's lived with since she was 14. She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria - so unusual that only a handful of cases are documented worldwide.

The Girl Who Eats Only Tic Tacs

Meet Natalie Cooper, a 17-year-old teenager who has a mystery illness that makes her sick every time she eats anything. Well, almost anything. She can eat one thing that doesn’t make her sick: Tic tac mint!

For reasons that doctors are unable to explain, Tic tacs are the only thing she can stomach, meaning she has to get the rest of her sustenance from a specially formulated feed through a tube.

The Woman Who is Allergic to Modern Technology

For most people talking on a mobile phone, cooking dinner in the microwave or driving in a car is simply part of modern living in 21st century Britain. But completing any such tasks is impossible for Debbie Bird - because she is allergic to Cell Phones and Microwaves.

The 39-year-old is so sensitive to the electromagnetic field (emf) or 'smog' created by computers, mobile phones, microwave ovens and even some cars, that she develops a painful skin rash and her eyelids swell to three times their size if she goes near them. As a consequence, Mrs Bird, a health spa manager, has transformed her home into an EMF-free zone to try and stay healthy. 'I can no longer do things that I used to take for granted,' Mrs Bird said. "My day-to-day life has been seriously affected by EMF".

The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep: stayed awake 24 hours a day for years

Rhett Lamb is often cranky like any other 3-year-old toddler, but there’s one thing that makes him completely different: he has a rare medical condition in which he can’t sleep a wink.

Rhett is awake nearly 24 hours a day, and his condition has baffled his parents and doctors for years. They took clock shifts watching his every sleep-deprived mood to determine what ailed the young boy.

After a number of conflicting opinions, Shannon and David Lamb finally learned what was wrong with their child: Doctors diagnosed Rhett with an extremely rare condition called chiari malformation.

"The brain literally is squeezed into the spinal column. What happens is you get compression, squeezing, strangulating of the brain stem, which has all the vital functions that control sleep, speech, our cranial nerves, our circulatory system, even our breathing system," Savard said.

The Woman Who has 200 Orgasms every day

UK's Sarah Carmen, 24, is a 200-a-day orgasm girl who gets good, good, GOOD vibrations from almost anything. She suffers from Permanent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), which increases blood flow to the sex organs. "Sometimes I have so much sex to try to calm myself down I get bored of it. And men I sleep with don't seem to make as much effort because I climax so easily."

She believes her condition was brought on by the pills. "Within a few weeks I just began to get more and more aroused more and more of the time and I just kept having endless orgasms. It started off in bed where sex sessions would last for hours and my boyfriend would be stunned at how many times I would orgasm. Then it would happen after sex. I'd be thinking about what we'd done in bed and I'd start feeling a bit flushed, then I'd become aroused and climax. In six months I was having 150 orgasms a day—and it has been as many as 200."

She and her boyfriend split— and new partners struggle to keep up with her sex demands. "Often, I'll want to wear myself out by having as many orgasms as I can so they stop and I can get some peace," she said.

The Musician Who Can't Stop Hiccupping

Chris Sands, 24, from Lincoln, hiccups as often as every two seconds - and sometimes even when he is asleep. He has tried a variety of cures, including hypnosis and yoga, but nothing has worked. Mr Sands thinks his problem stems from an acid reflux condition caused by a damaged valve in his stomach. "If the acid levels are severe enough they are going to do keyhole surgery and grab part of my stomach and wrap it around the valve to tighten it," he said.

Mr Sands, who is a backing singer in the group Ebullient, said the condition has hampered his career as he has only been able to perform four times. In the next couple of weeks --as of the day of the report--, doctors at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre will put a tube into his stomach to monitor acid levels and decide if keyhole surgery is possible.

The Woman Who Can’t Forget

That's the story of AJ, an extraordinary 40-year-old married woman who remembers everything.

McGaugh and fellow UCI researchers Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker have been studying the extraordinary case of a person who has "nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic" memory of her personal history and countless public events. If you randomly pick a date from the past 25 years and ask her about it, she’ll usually provide elaborate, verifiable details about what happened to her that day and if there were any significant news events on topics that interested her. She usually also recalls what day of the week it was and what the weather was like.

The 40-year-old woman, who was given the code name AJ to protect her privacy, is so unusual that UCI coined a name for her condition in a recent issue of the journal Neurocase: hyperthymestic syndrome.

The Man Who Can't Get Fat

Mr Perry, 59, can eat whatever he likes - including unlimited pies, burgers and desserts - and never get fat. He cannot put on weight because of a condition called lipodystrophy that makes his body rapidly burn fat.

He used to be a chubby child, but at age 12 the fat dropped off "almost over night". He initially tried to eat more to gain weight, but it had no effect. Mr Perry, of Ilford in Essex, endured a decade of tests before the illness was diagnosed. It finally emerged that his body produces six times the normal level of insulin. Doctors have admitted that the condition would be a "slimmer's dream".

The Man Who Doesn't Feel Cold

Dutchman Wim Hof, also known as the Iceman, is the man that swam under ice, and stood in bins filled with ice. He climbed the Mt. Blanc in shorts in the icy cold, harvested world records and always stands for new challenges.

Scientists can't really explain it, but the 48-year-old Dutchman is able to withstand, and even thrive, in temperatures that could be fatal to the average person.

The Girl That Collapses Every Time She Laughs

Kay Underwood, 20, has cataplexy, which means that almost any sort of strong emotion triggers a dramatic weakening of her muscles. Exhilaration, anger, fear, surprise, awe and even embarrassment can also cause sufferers to suddenly collapse on the spot.

Kay, of Barrow-upon-Soar, Leicestershire (UK), who was diagnosed with the condition five years ago, once collapsed more than 40 times in a single day. She said: "People find it very odd when it happens, and it isn't always easy to cope with strangers' reactions. "

Like most cataplexy sufferers, Ms Underwood is also battling narcolepsy - a condition that makes her drop off to sleep without warning. Narcolepsy affects around 30,000 people in the UK and about 70 per cent of them also have cataplexy.