Inflation

Criminal

In 2010, an unnamed woman decided she wanted to surgically enhance her posterior. She paid $700 for the cosmetic treatment, but began feeling sick a few hours afterward. The injection sites were bleeding and oozing, and the patient became very ill and rushed herself to Tampa General Hospital, where she was treated for infection and pneumonia. "The victim sustained extensive disfigurement to her buttocks and scarring, had to undergo several blood transfusions and multiple surgeries...followed with home nursing care for several weeks," reads an e-mail from Jennifer Hirst, Deputy Press Secretary for Florida's Department of Health. Consequently, Oneal Ron Morris (1st image) was arrested earlier this month in Miami Gardens, Florida, and charged with causing bodily injury and practicing healthcare without a license. Morris, a 30-year-old MTF transsexual, did not in fact have medical credentials, despite performing many cosmetic procedures. The substances Morris injected into the buttocks of this female client to improve their shape and appearance included - according to initial laboratory analysis - superglue, mineral oil, cement, and Fix-a-Flat.

CORRECTION: I originally misidentified the person in the 1st photograph as Oneal Ron Morris's unnamed victim. It is in fact Morris. Here is the photo of another victim who has come forward. Thanks to L. Lynn Zieber for bringing the mistake to my attention.

Accidental

Steven McCormack (2nd image), a 48-year-old truck driver in Opotiki, New Zealand, had no intention of enhancing his rear end in May of this year. He was at work at Waiotahi Contractors, standing on the rigging between his truck and trailer when he slipped off. He landed on a brass valve and the nozzle pierced his left buttock. Unfortunately, that nozzle was connected to a hose intended to inject compressed air into the truck's brakes. The air rushed into McCormack's body at 100 pounds per square inch. He started screaming, and later described, "I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot. I was blowing up like a football...it felt like I had the bends - like in diving. I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon" (listen to him tell the story here). His body was twice the normal size in a matter of minutes. Fellow workers came to his aid: his boss Robbie Petersen cut the air supply, he and 2 other men lifted McCormack with the nozzle still embedded and laid him in the recovery position, and they packed ice around his neck to ease the swelling. Half an hour later an ambulance arrived, and the paramedics removed the nozzle and rushed him to Whakatane Hospital. Doctors inserted a chest tube to drain fluid from his lungs and cleared the wound in his buttock using what felt to him like a drill. The air separated his fat from his muscles filling his abdomen and chest, the space around his heart and lungs, and even behind his eyelids. It had not broken the skin, so it was allowed to escape "the usual way gas passes from the body."