"No doc, I didn't know a chisel in the eye was a medical procedure" (The three worst sounds I've ever heard) (26488 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.95 on 92 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by <interloper> (View user info) at 2006-11-13 12:08:12 EST
This is a true story.
Way back when I was still a humble engineering student, I interned at a place that made medical implants and instruments. The department I worked for specialized in the skull, and specifically the face. We made all the little gadgets and gizmos a surgeon would use to put your face back together after that Friday night barfight that left part of your jaw sticking out your neck and your cheekbone facing the wrong direction.
During the interview, at the very end and almost as an afterthought, they asked me a quick question. "Oh, by the way, you're ok with the sight of blood, right?"
That's right, they asked me if I was ok with the sight of blood. No mention of the hours of gruesome surgery videos, pictures and films of the worst injuries imaginable, days in the hospitals watching fairly nasty live surgery, and of course, the cadavers.
And when I say 'cadavers', you're probably thinking of a dead human body lying on a table. Well, you would be about 10% right, because dead human bodies are expensive, and there's no reason to drop $15k for a whole body when all you need is the head ($2499.99).
So it was the third month I'd been working there, and my boss decided it was about time I got to participate in the whole Cadaver Experience(TM). There was a specialist surgeon flying in from overseas to test some prototypes and give us feedback, and then depending on how long that took we figured we'd have some other devices ready to ask him about, time permitting.
I got into work early that day, met up with my boss and the two other engineers who were going ot be involved, and we sit down with the Doc and the foreign engineer who came over with him. We do the little song and dance about what we'd like him to do, and head down to the cadaver lab by 8am.
Any room that's lined with freezers housing human body parts is a weird one, but sometimes I wonder if the bright white walls, unnatural lighting, and sterile colors are partially there just to remind you that you're not in the cafeteria. You know, in case you missed the severed human head lying on the table in the middle of the room.
So we suited up, which involved about three layers of paper jumpsuits and aprons, gloves, masks, and eye protection, then headed into the lab. I was on camera and notebook duty, and the other engineers were hovering around the surgeon holding tools and prototypes. The head was already out there waiting for us, courtesy of the lady who runs the lab (she used to be a document controller). For those of you in the know, bodies that get donated to science are almost always from the elderly, and this one was no exception.
So we do our thing. The procedure the doctor does takes about half the morning, and it's pretty gruesome, but no big deal, and we finish early. Well, rather than call it an early day and leave the old lady's head alone, one of the engineers runs off to get something she's been working on.
I'm probably not supposed to talk about the things we made there, so I'll spare you the details. Basically, in your eye is something called the 'canthal ligament', which basically anchors your eyelid to the bone. Sometimes, often with the gentle persuasion of a drunken barfight, the canthal ligament will detach and you'll look like a complete tool. The thing this engineer was working on was a method to re-anchor the ligament after it's decided to go AWOL.
Using the device involves drilling a hole through the bridge of your nose. Essentially, the surgeon will take a power drill and put it right where the pad of a pair of eyeglasses rests, and drill through and out the other side, where the other pad rests. Now I know what you're thinking... "but won't drilling through the skin leave a nasty mess that will scar and probably get infected?" Well, you're right. That's why they peel your face down first.
They call it 'degloving', which basically involves cutting from one ear to another along your hairline and then peeling the face down all the way to your eyes. It's a little nasty, especially since your forehead and everything bunches up on your nose like a rubber Halloween mask. What it reveals is the off white, lumpy slickness of your skull, with little yellowish globs of fat stuck to it.
At this point the surgeon decided he wanted to clean up the area before operating, so he took a curette (a metal scraper) and goes to work scraping the bone. Now if you've ever heard the relentless wet scraping of a tiny metal spoon on the bare slimeyness of the human skull, you'd know that an entire orchestra of fingernails on chalkboards is a near orgasmic rapture in comparison.
It was the worst sound I'd heard up to that point, and the third worst sound I've ever heard in my life.
Well, the doctor did his thing and we were done a half hour later. So with more time to kill, another engineer goes and grabs an orbital floorplate he wants some feedback on. To explain: the structure of your eye socket (aka the 'orbit') is made up of the intersection of seven different bones. The bottom of your eye socket (the 'orbital floor') is eggshell thin, and hence the weakest part of your orbit. Your eye is made mostly of fluid, and fluids are for all practical purposes incompressible. This means that when your eye takes a direct hit, it transfers the forces almost perfectly to the bones of the orbit.
When this is enough force to break the orbital floor, you get what they call a 'hydraulic blowout', which basically involves the bones of the orbital floor exploding and your eyeball falling halfway into your sinus. Just trust me, it's pretty gross.
So to fix it, a surgeon's got to fish the little bits of bone out of the sinus, hoist the eye back to where it goes, and slip a metal plate in there to hold the eye up. This metal plate was the object of the engineer's interest, and he started asking the Doc all sorts of questions about what would make it easier to use.
Finally the Doc decides it'd just be easier to show him how to use it, and proclaims that he's going to "make a defect". He starts by making a very neat incision under the cadaver's eye, then fishes a retractor inside to push the eye out of the weay so we can see the flesh-covered orbital floor. Then, before we have any idea what's going on, the Doc grabs two tools off the table: an osteotome (a big fucking chisel) and a mallet (a big fucking hammer).
Next thing I know he's got the chisel in the gap under the eye and is winding up on the hammer. Now this Doc is probably in his late sixties, and if you were to think that the sight of a clean cut sixty year old doctor winding up with a hammer while holding a chisel in the eye of a decapitated head was comical enough that the resulting sound wouldn't make your nuts retract into your throat... well you'd be wrong.
It was the worst sound I'd heard up to that point, and the second worst sound I've ever heard in my life.
To give you some appreciation for what it sounded like, imagine you put an egg and a chicken bone in a jar of mayonnaise and hit it with a hammer. It was sharp and wet and squishy and crunchy and loud all at the same time.
Now, at this point I was pretty sure we were through the worst of it. I mean, I'd expected the visual nastyness, but the auditory nastyness I was completely unprepared for. So I let out a sigh of relief as the Doc reached for a long pair of forceps to reach into the cadaver's sinus (through the eye socket, no less) and fish out all the little bits of bone he'd scattered there.
It was the worst fucking sound I've ever heard in my life.
User Reviews
Submitted by Alter (user info) at 2007-09-26 22:00:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No, Comment.
Submitted by Blinkish (user info) at 2007-09-20 15:51:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That would be a really cool job.
And this is well written.
Submitted by cuberat (user info) at 2007-09-20 15:29:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I almost ralphed reading this...
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-08-27 11:01:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
<throws up a little in my mouth>
Submitted by Zeglamancer (user info) at 2007-07-30 00:31:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Bleh Lisa you took your account back. Notice how I took care of it and didnt post a whole bunch of stupid shit under your name?
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2007-07-30 00:07:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2007-07-30 00:07:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
1.5
Submitted by SlewiNash (user info) at 2007-07-26 10:04:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool!
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2007-05-19 08:07:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-02-22 20:54:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
thought this was excellent writing when it first came out. now I can rate it as such.
Submitted by Shifty (user info) at 2007-01-11 15:28:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
:)
Submitted by rejected (user info) at 2007-01-09 18:28:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"No doc, I didn't know a chisel in the eye was a medical procedure, but I thought a penis in the eye definitely was."
Submitted by Targa (user info) at 2007-01-08 04:06:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
As I was reading this, I was imagining the inside of my eye socket.. and, through my eyelid, was gently pushing on my eyeball with my index finger.
I like this kinda junk.
I especially like it when it's well-written.
Submitted by coley (user info) at 2007-01-08 02:51:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Lisa (user info) at 2007-01-08 02:49:39 (#)
Ranking: 2
You're smart. That's really hot.
===
holy crap I agree with Lisa on something
Submitted by Lisa (user info) at 2007-01-08 02:49:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You're smart. That's really hot.
Submitted by TheDivider (user info) at 2007-01-07 23:13:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-12-19 16:31:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
What?
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2006-11-28 17:31:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I like when I went into the cadaver lab with my wife one night so she could do a bit studying. Her exam was going to be on the anatomy and structure of the human brain. I was floored by the fact that sitting on the table in the middle of the room was a .99 cent rubermaid bin filled with about a dozen brains. I thought to myself that it was so weird that we spend our whole lives trying to expand our conciesness and gain this infinite wisdom, but who guesses that the culmination of their efforts would be uncerimoniously be on display like that.
I dunno, just a wierd story.
Submitted by shortgerbal (user info) at 2006-11-19 23:01:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by interloper (user info) at 2006-11-19 17:53:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
When you buy a body, to whom does the money go?
-
It seems like a paradox at first, because companies have to go out and buy bodies that get 'donated' to science. But as far as I can tell, your money (and I use the word 'your' loosely, because you have to have a license to buy human body parts) goes to the middleman companies who collect, store, ship, and, uh, "partition" the bodies donated to science.
Submitted by goodontoast (user info) at 2006-11-19 14:27:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Thanks for making me feel better about abandoning my plans of Med School for a Philosophy Degree.
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2006-11-19 11:10:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i will have to postpone lunch for a while...
Submitted by Istaros (user info) at 2006-11-19 10:47:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this was awesome. "The head was already out there waiting for us, courtesy of the lady who runs the lab (she used to be a document controller)." made me laugh for some reason
also, i am now very scared of inion
Submitted by AinSophAur (user info) at 2006-11-19 10:03:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh my
Submitted by street-pirate (user info) at 2006-11-18 20:38:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
So, in theory, could the orbital floor be shattered by, say, an erect penis? A throbbing, bulbous, anger-filled penis? You know, in theory.
------------------------------------
I laughed till my cheeks hurted.
When you buy a body, to whom does the money go?
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-11-16 18:21:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-11-16 18:10:42 (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
---
You know what you've done.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-11-16 18:10:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-11-16 17:57:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2006-11-16 17:39:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I laughed and laughed and laughed.
While laughing, I was sick a little all over my desk.
Submitted by extacy_red (user info) at 2006-11-15 22:53:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
my eye is twitching.
thanks ya bastard.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-11-15 19:54:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
ugh
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-11-15 13:41:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2006-11-15 12:13:44 (#)
Ranking: 2
I stopped reading at "scraping"
+2 for making me loose my appetite.
---
If you loose it - where does it run off to?
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2006-11-15 12:13:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I stopped reading at "scraping"
+2 for making me loose my appetite.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-11-15 08:45:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I cannot give this anything less than a 2.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-11-15 01:42:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
TimeCop got his first post on B@W.
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-11-15 00:38:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
B@W! WOO!
I submitted, anyone else?
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-11-15 00:05:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Your second post got B@W? Fuck you.
Awesome though.
Submitted by sl4tt3ry (user info) at 2006-11-14 23:39:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
great visual audios
Submitted by cstick3 (user info) at 2006-11-14 23:23:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
oooh, i am about to graduate as a mech. engineer!!!! i hope i get to do cool ass shit like squish eyeballs and play with severed heads!
Submitted by LongestPants (user info) at 2006-11-14 23:17:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
God, I almost passed out reading this. Good job.
Submitted by RPharazon (user info) at 2006-11-14 21:50:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
My imagination just died a little.
Well done.
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2006-11-14 17:22:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
that certainly kept my attention, and a nice writing style
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2006-11-14 16:06:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Congrats on B@W!
Submitted by jraines (user info) at 2006-11-14 16:01:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
It was beautiful and terrible all at once. Great job.
Submitted by mr-bee (user info) at 2006-11-14 11:54:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
So, in theory, could the orbital floor be shattered by, say, an erect penis? A throbbing, bulbous, anger-filled penis? You know, in theory.
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2006-11-14 10:05:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
*stands and claps*
Submitted by boomslang (user info) at 2006-11-14 10:04:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
groag
Submitted by AllyJeans (user info) at 2006-11-14 08:31:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by phuzzygish (user info) at 2006-11-14 08:17:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I wonder who they first person to end this 100% records gonna be...
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-11-14 08:08:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
'uh oh' usually agitates me.
Submitted by nahnoneofit (user info) at 2006-11-14 07:00:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i had a hydraulic blwout once, one sucker punch= four broken bones and a crushed sinus.
didnt know it was broken till a week later i realized faces shouldnt be that pliable.
i guess its a common injury, though i dont think your eye falls into your cheek unless its REAL bad.
good description
Submitted by Sweetdeviant (user info) at 2006-11-14 05:09:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by phuzzygish (user info) at 2006-11-14 04:53:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
BLAAAAAARF
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-11-14 04:14:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
nice!
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2006-11-14 03:27:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
art.
Submitted by phauna (user info) at 2006-11-14 03:20:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Squelch.
Submitted by GMCrayon (user info) at 2006-11-14 02:26:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE!
Submitted by BadAssJulie (user info) at 2006-11-14 02:24:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by bart (user info) at 2006-11-14 01:31:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Arizhel (user info) at 2006-11-14 01:09:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This made me nauseous.
So glad there's no pictures.
Ugh.
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2006-11-13 22:49:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by GaidinCanuck (user info) at 2006-11-13 20:26:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
And this is why I don't work with the human body.
Thanks for the reminder. ;)
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2006-11-13 18:07:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I can sell my head for $2,500? AWESOME! THen i can hire a hooker to pour beer down my open oesophagus.
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2006-11-13 17:53:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you just make Forensic Girl orgasm?
I bow to you, sir.
Submitted by Kracka (user info) at 2006-11-13 17:48:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2006-11-13 16:57:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh YES!
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-11-13 16:40:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I started to read this...
couldn't get past the third paragraph, but your descriptions are vivid!
(i'm just incredibly squeamish)
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-11-13 16:27:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent.
Submitted by jade_digitalmedia (user info) at 2006-11-13 16:09:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:12:38 (#)
Ranking: 2
hahahahha. ew. i did this medical thing when i was in hs, they let us play with cadavers. i was hypnotized by moving an arm tendon and watching the fingers twitch.
i reiterate, ew.
-----
you gots to play with cadavers, not fair. all we got were fetal pigs and raw chicken. weeeeps.
Submitted by Tracer0351 (user info) at 2006-11-13 16:09:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This made me cringe, repetedly. And I make a habit of scraping fresh bodies off pavment.
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2006-11-13 15:39:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
For about 10 bucks I can get you a toe
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-11-13 15:29:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Everything you ever wanted to know about interloper
User id: 28273
Registered on or around: 2006-08-16 23:55:06
# Messages posted: 2
# Reviews written: 0
# Times these posts have been reviewed : 27
# Hits: 499
Average rating of all messages: 2.00
====
PERFECT AVERAGE RATING.
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT.
*DIES*
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-11-13 15:25:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:34:05 (#)
Ranking: 2
Didn't finish it, you win the +2 for grossing me out without pictures...
------
And I never thought that I would be laughing my ass off because I was grossed out to the point of having to chew back vomit for 5 minutes...
God this is B@W material.
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2006-11-13 15:17:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for reinforcing my decision not to pursue biomedical applications in engineering. HVAC systems are far less disgusting.
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2006-11-13 15:09:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Is anyone else horny?
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-11-13 14:19:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
vomilicious.
Submitted by garudave (user info) at 2006-11-13 14:04:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. One of the best things I've read in a while. Downright hilarious.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2006-11-13 14:03:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is why I didn't go into anything medical in school.
Submitted by Newty (user info) at 2006-11-13 13:44:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i'm so glad you didn't use any pictures. i was, of corse stupid enough to read this while eating my dinner, vomiting ensued
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2006-11-13 13:41:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Disturbing...
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-11-13 13:40:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2006-11-13 13:24:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+ fucking 2
NSFL
not safe for lunch
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-11-13 13:16:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
fishing things out of skulls makes a squicky sound in my opinion. kind of like tearing apart a raw chicken by shoving both your hands into its body cavity, getting a good hold, and pulling in opposite directions.
also, stepping on a mouse is a way worse sound.
no it wasn't me.
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2006-11-13 13:06:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I am so going to vom after reading this. Thanks.
Submitted by congo (user info) at 2006-11-13 13:01:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:38:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:37:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:34:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Didn't finish it, you win the +2 for grossing me out without pictures...
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:30:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
YUM!
Submitted by thesushiking (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:29:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
how poetic.
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:25:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Jesus that rocks
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-11-13 12:12:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hahahahha. ew. i did this medical thing when i was in hs, they let us play with cadavers. i was hypnotized by moving an arm tendon and watching the fingers twitch.
i reiterate, ew.