Monday 4th April 2005
Surgeons cast doubt on recapitation claim
Suspicion over microsurgical miracle
by Bob Wallet
In what is seen as the first of its kind, a 57-year-old farmer from Pottsley, North Staffordshire, underwent surgery to sew his head back on after it was severed by an industrial hay bale twiner. Surgeons at the Royal George II Hospital in Tamworth carried out the twenty-eight-hour procedure before revealing to a stunned world the news that the operation had been a success.
Mr Chamreeprath Saramakrathanaram, the eminent micro surgeon who grew up in an Indonesian slum, told a waiting pack of journalists on the steps of the adjacent gynaecological department that the farmer, Kevin Swan, was sat up in bed and talking nonsense to the nurses. "This seems to be his natural state, so we're pleased to see he is on his way to a full recovery," said a beaming Mr Saramakrathanaram.
The awful plight of Mr Swan began last Thursday at 5pm when he was completing the hay bale gathering at his 300 acre farm. The mechanism involves a spool of nylon twine rotating at several thousand miles per hour. When the ratchet connected to a sub frame spigot sheared the twine end began flapping around. Mr Swan took a closer look and had his head severed just below his voice box.
By the time paramedics arrived they found his head had been packed in ice by Mr Swan's wife, but she was told that this could have drowned him. The first paramedic on the scene, Steph Bentley told The Rockall Times: "The correct procedure is to pack the body in ice, not the head, which must be able to breathe." The forty-minute journey to the hospital was described by Bentley as: "The longest in my life. Mr Swan spoke absolute cobblers all the way there. But we didn't mind because we knew as long as he was talking he was still alive."
However, another eminent surgeon, Professor Sir Winston Keithley MRSC KNIB, who carried out the first eyeball transplant in 1979, cast doubt on the claims of the Royal George II Hospital. "It isn't the first time they have performed so-called ground -breaking microsurgery," Professor KNIB told The Rockall Times by videophone from his holiday home in Hampstead. "The operations seem to get more extreme and outlandish and I suspect an element of performance target pressure is behind some of the stories."
The Rockall Times commissioned expert statisticians GORI to look into recent microsurgery and other extreme clinical practices at the hospital. They discovered the following incidents:
- February 2000: a woman has an ear sewn onto the front of her head to maintain blood flow in her face prior to cosmetic surgery to alleviate 'botox puffiness'.
- January 2001: A 19-year-old Marilyn Manson fan has an upturned crucifix removed after he tried to pierce his own tongue with it. The crucifix was two feet long.
- August 2001: A man with a Kevlar left leg has a real foot attached to the end of it and comes third in the London Marathon.
- March 2002: A man who lost both arms in a car crash has them reattached the opposite way round in order to improve his golf handicap.
- April 2003: An unidentified Vietnamese woman has 'anglosurgery' to make her look more like Delia Smith.
- November 2004: Ex-England pace bowler Bob Willis has a Dyson kneecap inserted.
In all cases GORI was unable to find any account of the operations other than those contained in hospital records. In fact, Rockall Times reporter Bob Wallet tried to enter the Cliveofindia ward at the Royal George II Hospital disguised as a doctor in order to interview Mr Swan, but auxiliary staff on duty at the time had no knowledge of the patient or the operation and were flabbergasted to hear about the story. "We heard a rumour that someone in A&E had a crucifix removed from his tongue, but no one has been on this ward with a severed head," said one visibly-flabbergasted porter.
North Staffordshire Health Trust was unavailable for comment today and Mr Swan's farm was cordoned off because of a foot and mouth scare. Bob Willis is currently believed to be in Bedingfield where he is launching his new book of cricketing anecdotes Ian Botham Creased Me Up.