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When Waiting for Doctors Just Won't Cut It: Man Takes a Stab at His Own Surgery With a Butter Knife

butter-knife-320x.jpg
Photo of an unrelated butter knife by Le Petit Poulailler via Flickr

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A Glendale man who was "tired of waiting" for an operation went ahead and took at stab at it himself using a butter knife Sunday night. The 63-year-old was using the kitchen tool to try to "remove a protruding hernia from his stomach" explains KTLA.The DIY operation was curtailed when the man's wife called authorities to their home. They found the man, whose name is not being made public, nude on his patio, with the knife handle sticking out of his gut.

Alas, things got a little uglier--and stranger--as the couple awaited the arrival of paramedics. The man yanked out the knife, and replaced it with a cigarette in the gaping wound.

His botched at-home surgery and bizarre behavior got the man a trip to Los Angeles County USC Medical Center for not just treatment for his wound, but a psych hold.

Authorities say the man managed to avoid hitting any vital organs with his improvised surgical tool, but he might get that hernia operation ahead of schedule.

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