Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Scalped Part IV

A Czech woman who had her hair and scalp ripped off by a powerful electric drill has almost fully recovered after undergoing surgery that replaced the skin using grafts from her arms and legs. Mother-of-four Petra Novotna, 27, had been using the electric drill with her hair tied up in a ponytail when a few strands became wrapped up in the spinning device. Within a fraction of a second it sucked the rest of the hair around the drill bit, and then jerked her head forward - tearing off the skin of her head in straight line from her eyes and the top of her nose around to the back of her head.

The young woman from the village of Tremosna in the Czech Republic had been rushed to the nearby hospital in a critical condition after her cries raised the alarm. She was in a serious condition when she was delivered to surgeons at the clinic of plastic surgery at the University Hospital of Vinohrady in the Czech Republic capital Prague. The horrific accident had left almost half her skull exposed, but as the mangled remains of her scalp were impossible to reattach, doctors had to operate immediately using tissue from the other parts of her body.

 The head of the clinic and Petra's doctor Andrej Sukop said: 'We took an 8 to 10centimetres long vascular graft from the patient's arms and legs and we put them on her face.' Petra says she is happy that the after-effects will not be so dramatic. Now, a few weeks after the horrible accident, she can already smile again and is looking forward to going back home.










Photo via the Daily Mail
See a video about this story here
You can find Part I here, Part II here and Part III here

Monday, February 9, 2015

Buffalo versus Lion

Cast out by his pride, this starving lion was forced to take on a fully-grown buffalo in his desperate bid to survive. What ensued was a brutal hour-long battle leaving both animals bloodied, exhausted and with fatal wounds. Dramatic images capture the lion savagely biting and clawing at the buffalo's mouth, the big cat's face smeared with blood from where he's been gored by his heavier and larger opponent's horns.














Photos credit: Matt Armstrong-Ford/Barcroft

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Bodies found in abandoned crematorium in Mexico

These disturbing images show dozens of decomposing bodies found by cops when they entered a crematorium which shut a year ago. Police entered the building after neighbours complained of a bad smell and found the 'perfectly embalmed' corpses which had been prepared for cremation. The bodies were found abandoned in the crematorium in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, officials say. Corpses of men, women and children were discovered in the building, leading cops to launch an investigation into crimes including the desecration of bodies, the BBC reports.

 Officials says they believe the bodies were left to decompose after the business closed. These graphic photos show bodies wrapped in sheet on the floor of the crematorium. Lime had reportedly been used to cover the bodies in a bid to disguise the odour.









Photo via The Mirror

Sunday, February 1, 2015

The Guanajuato Mummy Museum

The Guanajuato Mummy Museum, which sees more than 4,000 visitors a week, charges tourists £2 to gape at more than a hundred dried human cadavers, all of which have been disinterred from graves in the cemetery next door. Behind flimsy glass cabinets, the museum displays murder victims, criminals who were buried alive and infants laid to rest dressed up as saints – a Mexican belief that it will ease their passage to heaven.

 The Guanajuato Mummy Museum - owned by the state government - was recently voted as one of Mexico's best tourist attractions by users of one of Mexico's most popular tourism websites. The human remains have been preserved due to the method of burial in the Saint Paola Cemetery next door.  Corpses, rather than being buried in the ground are sealed inside air-tight crypts, where the lack of oxygen slows the natural rate of decomposition. 'The bodies dry out rather than putrefy, which leaves them in this state of mummification'















All photos credit: Alasdair Baverstock via The Daily Mail