Thank you! What is it with these news stories missing valuble information? So very frustrating!

@

_

Very Carefully...LOL

Since reading about this yesterday, I have asked myself the same question "How can 72 bags fit into a body cavity, and not do any harm, regardless of how small they are?

If one of them doesn't burst open in his stomach, I would think a big concern would be an intestinal blockage. Not caused by the size of the bags themselves but by the quantity of them passing through the loops of his bowels.

Who says he willfully swallowed the bags? There's a lot of bad people out there and a bunch of them happen to be members of drug cartels.

What would you do for a couple million dollars?

I WOULD!

As in, "Does this sh^t smell funny to you?"

I'm inclined to agree with you. The photos have to be fake, considering how many were crammed into the body cavity, if at all.

MSNBC should have asked a radiologist for a read on this picture before posting it. The upper torso placement of some of the bags would indicate the man was carrying some of the bags in his lungs.

The Brésilian government must need to score big points in the drug trafficking war to resort to such devious behavior.

Is it time for the U.S. to send them a check?

Tom, so much for credibility, just one more example of the old and valid rule:

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

Steve Boutrus @ 23: Tom, the diaphragm is attached to the lowest rib but the hemi-domes of the diaphragm extend up to the 4th intercostal space near the nipple line. A distended stomach will displace the spleen and the fundus will touch the diaphragm at the level of the 5th rib. The splenic flexure of the colon often extends to the 7th intercostal space. Bottom Line: This Images is perfectly consistent with normal anatomy, but even it if wasn't, a hiatal hernia would be all it takes to explain it.

I'm an ER doc, but don't take my word for it, just look at the Netter plate entitled "Regions and Planes of the Abdomen." (Available via Google Images for those who don't have Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy). Conspiracy theorists get believed too easily sometimes.

lamort DeLioncourt,

Do not worry, Brazilian economy is on rise. So not check for us Thank you very much!!!! We don't need money you don't have.... Since you are SO broke...

So, you are saying, this is a normal guy with a normal digestive system??

Variations and by the way, how many hotdogs the skinny guy eats on the competition??

Its can happen

This is not uncommon and the picture is exactly what it looks like when someone eats small bags of drugs. Usually not that many, but that's what it looks like when they transverse the digestive tract. Teaching anatomy and looking for drugs inside humans using radiology is apples and oranges. Work the Sarita checkpoint in Texas for about a month and you'll have an idea of what all those body parts you know the names of can really do.

Such genius, Tom. You don't comprehend the concept of "distention"? And you teach??

Self given credibility? what a concept!...and so modest too...you must be fun at parties!

Please have a look at the First posts of Tom, do not pick on the poor sod!!!

Tom, as a cardiac surgeon for four decades and the inventor of the artificial heart, I concur that your confused knowledge of anatomy would embarrass a sixth grader.

BULLSHYTE lurky mysterioso. The only thing you have invented are the thoughts in your head.

Or maybe you did....

Either way, this post was a test to see if i could write BULLSHYTE and not have it pulled, not to bash.

He can't, as you say "poop" them out, they were not in the digestive system, emplanted in the tract.

Bet a rookie gets that watch.

It's an on-the-fly reconstruction of multiple CT scans along the man's body. Look up the Siemens Somatom Sensation 64, and then look up some examples of the types of output it can give.

While you're on it, look up and learn the difference between Photoshopping and X-ray computed tomography. Just because the reconstructive software can be keyed to produce false color imagry in order to emphasize one element of a scan over another doesn't mean that the final image is faked.

It's more than likely a computerized reconstruction of the exam that was taken. Those can very well be in color depending on the software used to recon it. (Recon's are often used after Computed Tomography scans....and those aren't photoshopped)

CT scans can also recon different views depending on the plane of the body that you want to view and most recon software can even recon parts of the body in 3D.....so I agree that 's exactly what this picture represents.

lol Garnish , Good one beer and potaTOES!! right ;))

And good Irish whiskey

when you put it that way...

EWWW!

I don't think an MRI was involved. The original picture in the blog post showed an advertising logo for the "Sensation 64". That's a CT machine. So yes, X-rays, but unless there's another story elsewhere that establishes the use of MRI, it's unnecessary to involve one in order to produce that image. Normal output from a type of machine like the Sensation 64 can be made to look like that without any additional imaging.

People have been enjoying consciousness-altering substances for as long as humankind has existed, and I highly doubt that the Anti-Pleasure Brigade is ever going to put a stop to that. A much easier way to stop the "Drug Smuggling Problem" would be to legalize recreational drugs. Then there would be no need to waste time and resources on keeping people from transporting or using them, nor would there be a need for anyone to resort to swallowing 72 bags of cocaine, either.

Doubt if you are a " Lady " because if you were, then you know that when one Legalizes " Drugs " that have NO medical reason, thern the " Flood Gates are open " to all Narcotics , go to ANY emergency ward and see what THAT will mean, Ignorance IS Bliss !!!!

Eagle: Alcohol and tobacco are drugs that have no medical value -- in fact, they are among the most damaging substances out there. Yet other less harmful "narcotics," some with proven medicinal value like cannabis, are illegal.

Go to an emergency ward today and observe that they have absolutely no problem with overdoses or drug-seekers. Good luck.

Cengle, You are wrong on Both Alcohol has indeed medicinal uses, and like any medication it can and it IS overused, Tobaco also has medicinal uses, go and do some research of how many the tribal people knew off, Smoking was NOT one of them it was Banned in Most tribes only a few where allowed to smoke it in a few times in a year, so at least get the facts right, before You try to extol legalizing what you try to condemn!!!

How is alcohol used medicinally, other than for sterilization or to treat people who are going through alcohol withdrawl?

Keeping substances illegal will never work. You will always have people like 72-bag cocaine man circumventing the law to provide a supply of drugs to a demanding public. Always.

Thanks, doc, for enlightening. Most people fail to realize that a person's innards do not look like the neat and tidy drawings in anatomy books! On xrays a transverse colon can be pretty high up, almost like it resides in the lungs!!

Doc, wouldn't the fact that the guy would have to be laying down on a surface in order to get scanned also have something to do with this? When standing, I'd guess that the weight of the mass inside the colon would push it downward some in relation to the diaphragm, whereas laying down with all that content would push it down towards the back and the "outwards" towards both the pelvis in one direction and "up" towards the lungs and thorax area in the other. Wouldn't that also have an effect on where intestinal contents appear in relation to the ribcage?

I work in Radiology. Most often in x-ray but occasionally in CT. I'm amazed by some of the x-ray films I've seen where the colon is sitting extremely high in the chest cavity. I remember one specifically that came from our ER with chest pain. We did a PA and LAT chest on them and this was the case. The curvature of his splenic flexure was riding at the nipple line.