That's How It Happened

A classic non-medic error over at bOINGbOING. Mark Frauenfelder writes:

"Nineteen-year-old Tonga "Papio" Loumoli was diving at night in Hawaii when a four-foot-long crocodile needlefish sliced him from groin to breastbone."

Surprising that the needlefish made such a neat longitudinal incision, cleverly avoiding the tummy button eh? What really happened is that the fish pierced his abdominal wall in the right flank (under the little square gauze patch), and then clever Hawaiian surgeons made the tidy incision, trying to check that no bowel injury had occurred.