Fifteen years ago Graham Smith of Liverpool had a bowel operation. The internal nylon stitches in his abdomen caused him pain. “For 15 years I have been hunched over and leaning to the left,” he told The BBC. In 2011, Smith, a specialist engineer, told his hospital that he could actually see the stitches as “a small lump of nylon protruding from my abdomen.” Eventually the hospital agreed to remove the stitches, but it cancelled the operation twice. Frustrated, Smith decided to design his own titanium operating tools and he performed the surgery on himself.
From The Telegraph:
“I didn’t make the decision lightly – I was desperate, but I had to take control of it and I was not prepared to sit and die on a waiting list.
“I’m a specialist engineer. I do jobs people can’t do, but I’m not a surgeon so don’t try this at at home.
“There was a bit of blood and it stung a bit but I was confident in what I was doing.”
A spokesman for the Royal College of Surgeons told The Telegraph that DIY surgery was not advisable.