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Donald Church was left in agony for more than two months when surgeons sewed him up after an operation and left a metal tool over a foot long inside him. When he complained that he couldn?t bend over, doctors told him this was to be expected after major surgery. He even set off metal detectors in airports. The University of Washington Medical Center has now paid him almost $100,000.

His first operation was in May 2000, to remove a 13 pound malignant abdominal tumor. The normal surgical practice is to count up the instruments used before closing the patient up, to make sure nothing is left inside the body. However, in this case, a foot-long malleable retractor, which is used to hold a wound open so that surgeons can reach inside it, was somehow overlooked.
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When you hear a song you like on the radio, but the DJ doesn?t identify it, the researchers at Philips have come up with a new service that will get you the name of it. While the music is playing, you dial the number of the service provider and place your cellphone near the radio or TV speaker. A computer system analyses the music and compares it with a huge music database. Moments later, you should get a message on your phone naming the song. It will even let you buy the CD over your cellphone using an e-commerce transaction.
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Dr. Sam Parnia, a doctor at Southampton General Hospital in England, has been given approval to conduct the first large scale investigation into what happens when patients have a near death experience (NDE).

An earlier study at the hospital revealed that a small number of patients who suffered a cardiac arrest and survived reported some kind of unusual experience while they were clinically brain dead. These ranged from walking down a tunnel towards a bright light to seeing spinning gargoyles. In addition, an opinion poll of 1,000 people found that one in 10 people said they?d had an out of body experience.
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Violent crimes in U.S. schools which leave many students and teachers dead are on the rise, according to a new study by Dr. Mark Anderson of the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. He reveals that in more than half of the cases studied, the perpetrators gave some kind of warning before they acted, meaning that ?school-associated violent deaths are preventable.?
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