Top 7 breathtaking Self Surgeries you won’t believe

Source: http://amazingworldfactsnpics.com/am...8&MLID=1&AID=6

It is incredible some people / genius are done Self-surgery is the act of performing a surgical procedure on oneself. Sometimes it becomes necessity in extreme conditions to perform this act. This list includes 9 such individuals that because of great circumstances found it necessary to do so. It should be mentioned that self castration and self mutilation is actually the most common form of self- surgery and is not included in this list. Just a word of caution: The descriptions and some pictures on this list are not for the squeamish.

#1 Aron Lee Ralston

Born 1975: He is from Marion, Ohio Motivational speaker, mountaineer and an engineer



Self surgery for Amputation of Right Arm

He left his career in engineering to climb all of Colorado’s “fourteeners”, or peaks over 14,000 feet high. In 2002 while he was on a canyoneering trip alone in Blue John Canyon a boulder fell and pinned his right forearm. After five days of unsuccessfully trying to lift or break the boulder, a dehydrated and delirious Ralston prepared to cut off his already dead arm. Using a dull blade he cut the soft tissue around the break and then used the tool’s pliers to tear at the tougher tendons. Finally freed, Ralston was still 8 miles from his truck he had to rappel down a 65-ft cliff, then hike out of the canyon. Eventually he met with other hikers and was given food and water. Aron was finally transported to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction Colorado for surgery.

Do you believe this: Later Ralston’s arm was retrieved by park authorities and removed from under the boulder. It was cremated and given to Ralston. He later returned to the boulder and left the ashes there. Aron Ralston still enjoys mountain climbing with the aid of a prosthetic arm.


#2 Inés Ramírez Pérez

Born 1960 : A Mexican woman from the state of Oaxaca

A self-performed cesarean section is a form of self-surgery where a woman attempts to perform a cesarean section on herself. Cases of self-inflicted cacesarean section have been reported since the 18th and 19th century



In March 2000, Inés Ramírez Pérez, gained media attention after performing a successful Cesarean section on herself. She had no medical training, but nevertheless performed a successful Cesarean section on herself; both she and her baby survived.

At midnight, on 5 March 2000 — after 12 hours of continual pain, Ramírez sat down on a bench and drank three small glasses of hard liquor. She then used a 15 cm kitchen knife to cut open her abdomen in a total of three attempts. Ramírez cut through her skin in a 17 cm vertical line several centimeters to the right of her navel, starting near the bottom of the ribs and ending near the pubic area. (For comparison: a typical C-section incision is 10 cm long, horizontal and well below the navel, the so-called “bikini-line incision”.) After operating on herself for an hour, she reached inside her uterus and pulled out her baby boy. She then severed the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors and became unconscious. She used clothes to bandage her wound after regaining consciousness, and sent one of her older sons to find help.

Several hours later, the village health assistant and a second man found Ramírez conscious and alert, along with her live baby. He sewed her incision with an available needle and thread.

Ramírez was eventually taken to the local clinic, two and a half miles away, and then to the nearest hospital, eight hours away by car. Sixteen hours thereafter she underwent surgical repair of the incision site. On the seventh post-operative day, she underwent a second surgery to repair complications resulting from damage to her intestines incurred during her C-section. She was released from the hospital on the tenth day post-surgery, and went on to make a complete recovery.

Do you believe this: Ramírez is only woman known to have performed a successful cesarean section on herself. Her case was written up in the issue of the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.


#3 Dr Leonid Rogozov

1934 born – Russian General practitioner, Surgeon

At the age of 27 Soviet Doctor Leonid Rogozovwas was stationed at the Novolazarevskaya base in the Antarctic. The doctor recognized his own acute appendicitis and worsening condition. Because of the absence of a support aircraft and inclement weather along with the danger of a burst appendix the doctor decided he would have to perform surgery on himself. With the team’s meteorologist holding the retractors, a driver to hold the mirror and other scientists passing surgical implements, he sat in a reclined position and cut out his own appendix under local anesthetic. During the operation he passed out, but was able to continue and complete the procedure in little less than two hours.

Self surgery for Appendectomy



Do you believe this: A detailed report was written by Dr Rogozov documenting the unusual event along with the photo shown above. The doctor made a full recovery and resumed all duties in two weeks.


#4 Amanda Feilding

1943 born – British artist, scientist and drug policy reformer.

Self surgery for Trepanation

Amanda Feilding is a British artist and scientific director. Feilding suffered from a condition that left her feeling exhausted and spent years looking for a reputable surgeon who would perform a technique known as trepanning. This is a procedure where a tiny portion of the skull is drilled into to allow blood to flow more easily around the brain. Eventually she gave up and at age 27 she decided to do the surgery herself. She was equipped with a dentist’s electric drill operated by a foot pedal she then taped dark glasses to her face to stop the blood running into her eyes. She first made an incision with a scalpel and then drilled, dipping the drill bit in water every so often to cool it down. She lost almost a liter of blood but she was pleased with her surgery. Over the next four hours she noticed herself rising up with a feeling of elation and relaxation. Feilding says, “I went out and had steak for supper, and then I went to a party.”



Do you believe this: Feilding made a short cult art film entitled ‘Heartbeat in the Brain’ and is shown only to invited audiences. She also ran for British Parliament twice, on the platform ‘Trepanation for the National Health’ with the intention of drawing attention to the fact that its potential benefits should be scientifically investigated.


#5 Deborah Sampson Gannett

Plymouth, Massachusetts – She was a woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Self surgery for Extraction of Musket Ball



Deborah Sampson was actually mentioned in the “Top 10 Men Who Were Really Women” list as a notable omission. In 1782 Deborah Sampson was enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army. Going by the name of Robert Shutleff she was strong and tall enough to look like a man and it was thought she didn’t have to shave because she was a very young . When her unit was sent to West Point, New York she was wounded in a battle nearby. She was taken to a hospital to be treated but snuck out so that she would not be discovered to be a woman. She operated on herself and removed one of the musket balls out of her thigh with a penknife and sewing needle. When she recovered from her wound she went back to her regiment. The next time Sampson was wounded her doctor found out she was a woman and in 1783 he arranged for her to be discharged from the Continental Army.

Do you believe this: Due to her wounds, Gannett received a military pension from the United States of America. Later, in 1838, Congress passed a special act granting a pension to her heirs.


#6 Dr Jerri Nielsen

1952-2009 she was an American physician with extensive ER experience.

Self surgery for Biopsy



In 1998 she was hired to spend a year at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station where she would be the only doctor during the winter. In early March 1999, Dr. Jerri Nielsen discovered a lump in her right breast. After consulting US physicians via email and video conference she performed a biopsy upon herself. The results were inconclusive because the material used on site was too outdated to allow for a precise diagnosis. It was then decided to send a military plane to airdrop supplies and medication for her treatment. Using the new supplies, she performed another biopsy which allowed for better scans to be sent to the US, where it was confirmed that the cells were cancerous. With the help of her makeshift medical team, Nielsen then began self-administering chemotherapy. In October a military transport aircraft was sent several weeks ahead of schedule to bring her back home. Once back in the United States, after multiple surgeries, complications and a mastectomy Nielsen went into remission.

Do you believe this: Nielson became a motivational speaker and wrote a book about her experience. The book (Ice Bound) was later adapted into a made-for-TV movie starring Susan Sarandon.


#7 Joannes Lethaeus (Jan de Doot)

Self surgery FOR Lithotomy (Removal of stones formed inside certain hollow organs such as the bladder and kidneys)

This is one of the interesting self- surgery because this occurred over 360 years ago. This information from a book called “Observationes medicae” In this case he describes Joannes Lethaeus who was a blacksmith who performed Lithotomy surgery on himself. The illustration above is also from Dr. Tulp’s book and displays the stone that Lethaeus removed from his own kidney and the knife that he used.



Having decided that no one but himself would cut into his flesh, he sent his wife to the fish market, which she didn’t mind doing. Only letting his brother help him, he instructed him to pull aside his scrotum while he grabbed the stone in his left hand and cut bravely in the perineum with a knife he had secretly prepared, and by standing again and again managed to make the wound long enough to allow the stone to pass. To get the stone out was more difficult, and he had to stick two fingers into the wound on either side to remove it with leveraged force, and it finally popped out of hiding with an explosive noise and tearing of the bladder. Now the more courageous than careful operation was completed, and the enemy that had declared war on him was safely on the ground, he sent for a healer who sewed up the two sides of the wound together, and the opening that he had cut himself, and properly bound it up; the flesh of which grew so happily that there no small hope of health was, but the wound was too big, and the bladder too torn, not to have ulcers forming. But this stone weighing 4 ounces and the size of a hen’s egg was a wonder how it came out with the help of one hand, without the proper tools, and then from the patient himself, whose greatest help was courage and impatience embedded in a truly impenetrable faith which caused a brave deed as none other.


Illustration of the knife and bladder stone

You must know this: There is an oil painting by Rembrandt called “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” and shows Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (who wrote the above text) explaining the musculature of the arm to medical professionals and is housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, the Netherlands.

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