Surgeon reveals unique things he's removed from people's hands including fishhooks and bullets
- last year
A surgeon has revealed the unique things he's removed from people's hands - including sea urchin spines, fishhooks and bullets.
Nick Pappas, 43, has been a practising orthopaedic surgeon for 10 years and spends his time removing foreign objects, inserting metal plates and re-attaching fingers.
The hand specialist shared a list of recent things he's removed from hands.
First up on the list is screws - with Nick saying he often has to establish the brand of the screw to allow him to use the correct screwdriver to remove it.
He has also removed sea urchin spines after a patient fell onto one of the creatures - leaving spines embedded as far as the bone.
Nick also removes other things such as gangrene-infected fingers, BB gun pellets and electrical wire.
Nick says he's also had to remove snake bit venom, toxic paint from a high-pressure paint gun and what he says is the "most dramatic" - fish hooks.
He decided to work at a private hospital so he would have more freedom and recently started sharing the intricacies of his job on social media.
Nick, from New Orleans, Louisiana, US, said: "I've got a private practice so I can teach and use social media to teach and educate people.
"People are interested to know what it's like if they ever have hand surgery and I'm able to show what it’s like to have a certain operation.
"In terms of things I've removed - everything, but now and then something will surprise me.
"I had one guy with a snake bite, which can make the whole hand swell up like a balloon.
"Another one is the high-pressure paint injuries when someone sprays paint with a high-pressure gun.
"Other times I see a lot of BB gun pellets and the patients don’t even realise they're in their hand and then show up six months after the incident, complaining of pain.
"I've also seen a lot of gunshots and, if it's a fragment of a bullet inside the bone, I usually leave it alone and observe it over time, but if it’s sticking out of the skin or a full bullet then you remove it.
Before removing the object, Nick has an extensive routine which he undertakes in order to locate it.
He uses a strong x-ray and MRI and sometimes also uses an ultrasound to accurately locate the object.
Most of his surgeries take as little as 30 minutes, however, he often does finger amputations and re-attachments, which he says can be 'challenging' and time consuming.
He said: "I did one where I replaces someone's thumb with their big toe.
"It took 12 hours and can be very tricky because the size doesn’t always match up.
"If you mess it up and the blood vessels don’t work properly then it can lead to a bad outcome.
"Thankfully, this one was successful.
"That was probably the most challenging. To take one part of the body and move it somewhere else.
"I also had one that was done from a Samurai sword that took off three of his fingers and it took 10 hours to re-attach all the nerves, the tendons and the bones."
Nick Pappas, 43, has been a practising orthopaedic surgeon for 10 years and spends his time removing foreign objects, inserting metal plates and re-attaching fingers.
The hand specialist shared a list of recent things he's removed from hands.
First up on the list is screws - with Nick saying he often has to establish the brand of the screw to allow him to use the correct screwdriver to remove it.
He has also removed sea urchin spines after a patient fell onto one of the creatures - leaving spines embedded as far as the bone.
Nick also removes other things such as gangrene-infected fingers, BB gun pellets and electrical wire.
Nick says he's also had to remove snake bit venom, toxic paint from a high-pressure paint gun and what he says is the "most dramatic" - fish hooks.
He decided to work at a private hospital so he would have more freedom and recently started sharing the intricacies of his job on social media.
Nick, from New Orleans, Louisiana, US, said: "I've got a private practice so I can teach and use social media to teach and educate people.
"People are interested to know what it's like if they ever have hand surgery and I'm able to show what it’s like to have a certain operation.
"In terms of things I've removed - everything, but now and then something will surprise me.
"I had one guy with a snake bite, which can make the whole hand swell up like a balloon.
"Another one is the high-pressure paint injuries when someone sprays paint with a high-pressure gun.
"Other times I see a lot of BB gun pellets and the patients don’t even realise they're in their hand and then show up six months after the incident, complaining of pain.
"I've also seen a lot of gunshots and, if it's a fragment of a bullet inside the bone, I usually leave it alone and observe it over time, but if it’s sticking out of the skin or a full bullet then you remove it.
Before removing the object, Nick has an extensive routine which he undertakes in order to locate it.
He uses a strong x-ray and MRI and sometimes also uses an ultrasound to accurately locate the object.
Most of his surgeries take as little as 30 minutes, however, he often does finger amputations and re-attachments, which he says can be 'challenging' and time consuming.
He said: "I did one where I replaces someone's thumb with their big toe.
"It took 12 hours and can be very tricky because the size doesn’t always match up.
"If you mess it up and the blood vessels don’t work properly then it can lead to a bad outcome.
"Thankfully, this one was successful.
"That was probably the most challenging. To take one part of the body and move it somewhere else.
"I also had one that was done from a Samurai sword that took off three of his fingers and it took 10 hours to re-attach all the nerves, the tendons and the bones."