So, you think you’re tough?

In one of his books from the Aubrey-Maturin series (one of which was made into the Master and Commander movie), Patrick O'Brian describes Dr. Steven Maturin performing a surgery on himself, removing a bullet.

Well, that's a work of fiction. This, my friends, was for real: a Russian surgeon, Leonid Rogozov,  performed an autoappendectomy in Antarctica during a 1961 expedition. That, my friends, is removing your own infected appendix surgically in the middle of frozen wilderness and living to tell the tale. This guy had some guts (pun intended). And some spine. And some brains. (If I was a grub goy, I would say a few words about a set of his other organs.)

8 May 1961

I didn’t permit myself to think about anything other than the task at hand. It was necessary to steel myself, steel myself firmly and grit my teeth. In the event that I lost consciousness, I’d given Sasha Artemev a syringe and shown him how to give me an injection. I chose a position half sitting. I explained to Zinovy Teplinsky how to hold the mirror. My poor assistants! At the last minute I looked over at them: they stood there in their surgical whites, whiter than white themselves. I was scared too. But when I picked up the needle with the novocaine and gave myself the first injection, somehow I automatically switched into operating mode, and from that point on I didn’t notice anything else.

I worked without gloves. It was hard to see. The mirror helps, but it also hinders — after all, it’s showing things backwards. I work mainly by touch. The bleeding is quite heavy, but I take my time — I try to work surely. Opening the peritoneum, I injured the blind gut and had to sew it up. Suddenly it flashed through my mind: there are more injuries here and I didn’t notice them... I grow weaker and weaker, my head starts to spin. Every 4–5 minutes I rest for 20–25 seconds. Finally, here it is, the cursed appendage! With horror I notice the dark stain at its base. That means just a day longer and it would have burst and...

At the worst moment of removing the appendix I flagged: my heart seized up and noticeably slowed; my hands felt like rubber. Well, I thought, it’s going to end badly. And all that was left was removing the appendix...

And then I realised that, basically, I was already saved.

This is what one of his assistants (remember, these people had nothing to do with medicine) wrote:

When Rogozov had made the incision and was manipulating his own innards as he removed the appendix, his intestine gurgled, which was highly unpleasant for us; it made one want to turn away, flee, not look — but I kept my head and stayed. Artemev and Teplinsky also held their places, although it later turned out they had both gone quite dizzy and were close to fainting... Rogozov himself was calm and focused on his work, but sweat was running down his face and he frequently asked Teplinsky to wipe his forehead... 

The operation ended at 4 am local time. By the end, Rogozov was very pale and obviously tired, but he finished everything off.