A BIT OFF
THE BOTTOM

It has often been wondered and unsuitably answered, but now a hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, at least seems to have provided clues to answering the question, “Where do hobbits come from?” And it seems they’re made in a lab by surgeons with poor math skills. Less pleased to learn the methodology is a Swedish police officer who, going under the knife to correct the issue of having one leg shorter than the other, awoke to find the leg that had been longer was now even shorter than the originally shorter one.

Two-and-a-half centimetres was all surgeons had told the officer they needed to remove from his longer leg in order to correct his life-long limb imbalance. Four surgeries later, the task was supposed to have been completed, which was when surgeons noted they had trimmed the leg down by three centimetres more than they should have. Conceivably, the procedure could be repeated until they hit testicle.

In addition to the miscalculation, the man was left with back and knee pain caused by surgical screws fixing his knee joint 20 degrees out of whack and a misaligned plate in his leg. The man has reported the clinic to Sweden’s Medical Responsibility Board.

by SCOTT SAXON