A while back we looked at Mirin Dajo and his act (which basically involved running himself through) which led on to Major General Henry A. Barnum's quite remarkable hole and a possible explanation for Dajo's abilities. The problem, which I highlighted at the time, was that while a fistula was certainly how the major did it, Dajo's more extreme stunts were still difficult to explain (as the expert acknowledged) and a fistula would probably be rather obvious when he was subjected to medical scrutiny.

Now the video featured in that last post has surfaced again over at Digg, forcing ModBlog (an excellent, if scary, body modification blog) to offer their own take on this and it is a pretty obvious one at that - perhaps Mirin Dajo was doing just what he says: running himself through with sharp metal objects.

They had previously interviewed the Indestructible Man, the introduction stating:

A few months ago I met “FK” in Germany. His personal play involves intense body insertions with dramatically large (and often unorthodox) objects, as well as other play and body modification activities. Due to an abnormally well developed immune system, he is able to push the limits of “if it feels good, do it” farther than most.

The rest is here but bear in mind this is strong stuff that might not be suitable for some. There are other people who experiment with deep skewer play (again click with caution) and come away with few injuries.

As ModBlog conclude:

The pictures are not particularly dramatic, because the reality is that there are many, many people out there who are perfectly capable of healing repeated serious injuries.

...

Now, in no way am suggesting it’s “safe”, but I certainly know many people who are capable of surviving deep skewers, including through the inner body cavity and “organ territory”, with minimal adverse effects or downtime. My personal assessment of Mirin Dajo is that there was no trick in what he did either on a sideshow or a supernatural level, and that he was operating in the same general realm.

Just to take this a step further - we often hear news of people surviving serious impaling on a wide variety of objects and even the most traumatic event can have little lasting damage. As I saw explained by a doctor on one of those late night cable shows: the bodies organs and blood vessels tend to be in their own protective sheaths and a steady application of pressure will tend to push aside anything in the way.

I did look around for something a bit more authoritative than "something I watched on cable one night" and there is a body of literature on various transabdominal impalings, the most promising of which is "Survival after transabdominal impalement from a construction injury: a review of the management of impalement injuries" but access is tricky (I think I used the piece of paper with my password on it as a bookmark) and I keep getting distracted by such classics as "Scroto-abdominal impalement injury in a skateboard rider." I'll keep trying to get that paper but I'll leave you with this find.

The Medical Journal of Australia gives us a report entitled: "Breaking the rules: a thoracic impalement injury" about an accident where they couldn't follow the basic rules of impalment (leave the object in until you get to hospital) but circumstances meant they had to remove it in the field:

An 18-year-old man was a front-seat passenger in a high-speed motor vehicle accident in which the vehicle ran off the road and struck a fence. A 4 cm diameter pipe from the fence pierced the windscreen and transfixed the left anterolateral side of the patient's chest wall, penetrated the front seat, and finally entered the back-seat compartment, where it pierced a "jerry can" containing petrol

Because of the potential for the petrol to catch fire during the cutting of the pipe, they had to remove him on the spot and, thanks to the rescue teams and surgeons, he sailed through surgery and recovered:

The patient was discharged home 15 days after admission. On review 10 days after discharge, his wounds had fully healed, and he had a relatively normal chest radiogram.

Which concludes:

Reports of major impalement injuries involving most parts of the body have been published, and the concepts that each impalement is an anatomically distinct injury, that coincident, more life threatening injuries should not be missed, and that the cardinal rule of management is "leave the impaling object in situ" have been well described. In our case, the patient survived despite our breaking this rule. In a safer setting, shortening of the pipe in front of and behind the patient using cutting tools, then transporting the patient to hospital to remove the pipe, would have been preferable. We could find only one other report of survival after removal of an impaling object in an uncontrolled environment -- a reference to an 1812 description of "Thomas Tipple", who removed himself from an object that had traversed a portion of the left side of his chest.

That last part obviously attracting my attention so I dug out this from The American Journal of Medical Sciences, New Series Volume 2 (1841) pages 117-118, which starts by telling us that part of Mr Tipple has been preserved for posterity: "Another preparation upon the pedestal, with the skeleton of the elephant, is that of the anterior parietes of the thorax of a man, whose case, being one of the most remarkable upon record" before moving on to describe the incident:

Thomas Tipple, arriving at the house of John Overton, at Stratford, near London, on the evening of the 13th of June, 1812, and the groom being absent, took off his coat and began to unharness the horse. Being undoubtedly not very well versed in the trade of an ostler, he commenced by taking off the bridle. This being removed, the horse sprang forwards, and the end of one of the shafts of the gig struck Tipple upon, the left breast, pierced the parietes, traversed a portion of the thorax, came out upon the right side, and penetrated the sheathing of the house. The first persons who arrived upon the spot, after the accident, were Edward and Henry Lawrence. They testify that they found him standing upon tiptoe, with both his arms extended. Although thus completely impaled, he was able to put his hand upon the end of the shaft and assist in drawing himself off. Being released, he respired two or three times without difficulty, and there was no inordinate agitation of the body. The wound did not bleed very freely, and the patient went into the house, took off his vest and walked up two flights of stairs.

This all seems remarkable and with modern medical intervention it sounds like he could have recovered just fine. As it was bleedings and sundry divers practices helped him recover and he lived for quite a few years after that before being overtaken by other complaints and recurring unpleasantness from the wound and he died (one can only wonder at the effectiveness of applications of mercury whether they helped put off his end or hastened it) - the account. For now, I'll end on this sage advice:

Sir William Blizzard commends Mr. Maiden for forbearing to use either a probe or his finger, in the examination of the wounds, and adds: "Many lives have been sacrificed to the gratification of curiosity, by researches into the direction and extent of wounds in the body."

Obviously thoracic injuries have a lot more potential for catastrophic harm given the presence of the heart and lungs all packed together. If you were daft enough to do this deliberately, then the abdomen would probably be the best location to give it a go, but please don't try this at home!!