RICHARD
03-04-2005, 01:14 PM
Five inch knife found in man's head
Hospital staff treating a retired school teacher for a headache found a five inch knife blade wedged in his head.
The discovery was made after doctors X-rayed Leonard Woronowicz to see if he had cracked his skull in a fall while climbing over a stool in his kitchen four days earlier.
Instead they found a blade that had penetrated the 61-year-old's head just below his right ear. It had snapped off at the handle without touching any major blood vessels or nerves - or causing any lasting damage.
He said: "I thought they might give me an aspirin, instead they pulled a five inch knife blade out of my head."
Woronowicz, from the Polish town of Wojnowice, said he had tripped over the stool while doing work in his kitchen.
He said: "I had some tools and other gadgets scattered on the kitchen floor where I had been doing the work when I tripped. The blade from the kitchen knife must have pierced my head then. My head hurt a bit, but I was convinced that it was from the fall. There was a small gash on the side of my head near my ear, but I thought it would soon heal and did not make much of it. I put a plaster on it and left it."
He added: "I didn't even guess what had happened when the next day I wanted to cut a piece of bread but couldn't find the kitchen knife. Despite carefully searching the room I could only find the handle. But I forgot about it as my headaches got worse over the next few days, and I decided to go to a hospital."
Local doctors were bewildered at the sight of the X-ray pictures and immediately called for an ambulance to take the patient to the Biaystok regional centre hospital in Northern Poland.
Surgeons pulled the five inch blade out of his skull in an operation that took just a few minutes. The blade had gone into his head from the side near his right ear.
Dr Marek Rogowski from the Bialystok hospital said a surgeon could not have made a better job of placing the knife so that it missed all vital bones, nerves and blood vessels. He said: "We have found objects in patients' bodies before, but this is unprecedented."
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The blade is missing and I have headaches.......go figure!
Hospital staff treating a retired school teacher for a headache found a five inch knife blade wedged in his head.
The discovery was made after doctors X-rayed Leonard Woronowicz to see if he had cracked his skull in a fall while climbing over a stool in his kitchen four days earlier.
Instead they found a blade that had penetrated the 61-year-old's head just below his right ear. It had snapped off at the handle without touching any major blood vessels or nerves - or causing any lasting damage.
He said: "I thought they might give me an aspirin, instead they pulled a five inch knife blade out of my head."
Woronowicz, from the Polish town of Wojnowice, said he had tripped over the stool while doing work in his kitchen.
He said: "I had some tools and other gadgets scattered on the kitchen floor where I had been doing the work when I tripped. The blade from the kitchen knife must have pierced my head then. My head hurt a bit, but I was convinced that it was from the fall. There was a small gash on the side of my head near my ear, but I thought it would soon heal and did not make much of it. I put a plaster on it and left it."
He added: "I didn't even guess what had happened when the next day I wanted to cut a piece of bread but couldn't find the kitchen knife. Despite carefully searching the room I could only find the handle. But I forgot about it as my headaches got worse over the next few days, and I decided to go to a hospital."
Local doctors were bewildered at the sight of the X-ray pictures and immediately called for an ambulance to take the patient to the Biaystok regional centre hospital in Northern Poland.
Surgeons pulled the five inch blade out of his skull in an operation that took just a few minutes. The blade had gone into his head from the side near his right ear.
Dr Marek Rogowski from the Bialystok hospital said a surgeon could not have made a better job of placing the knife so that it missed all vital bones, nerves and blood vessels. He said: "We have found objects in patients' bodies before, but this is unprecedented."
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The blade is missing and I have headaches.......go figure!