Shrapnel?

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Niner
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Shrapnel?

Post by Niner » Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:39 pm

Friend sent me a link to this story. Take a look at the photo of the "Shrapnel". Screws and bits of wire aren't shrapnel. Two handfuls of them too!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/1 ... d%3D222812
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Aughnanure
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Re: Shrapnel?

Post by Aughnanure » Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:23 pm

I have doubts about this, I don't think that Phillips head (self tapping?) screws and wire were in German mines.
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Re: Shrapnel?

Post by DuncaninFrance » Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:49 am

NOPE, THAT LOOKS LIKE COFFIN FIXINGS TO ME!
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Re: Shrapnel?

Post by Niner Delta » Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:22 pm

Back in the early '70s I drove a propane delivery truck and one of my stops was a crematorium. Got to know the operator since I was there twice a month. Watched him load the burner/oven a few times and the bodies were in a thin plywood box. So I asked him what about the nails or screws that held the box together and he told me they just used a magnet to separate them from the ashes, an obvious answer.

Jump forward to 2004 and my Mother's cremation, I asked about removing nails/screws from her ashes and was informed that now the bodies are placed in a cardboard box, so no nails or screws. I'm sure this varies by city/state/country.

As far as the metal in the picture, I have a hard time believing that all came out of one leg. When he was wounded, didn't the medic or Dr. notice any of it hanging out of the wound? Why was it concentrated in one spot, or was it spread throughout his body and he just never noticed it? Again, hard to believe.
And in 65 years he never had an x-ray of a painful knee, or if it was throughout his body, he never had an x-ray of anything?
I really can't believe this metal came out of one leg.


Although I do believe the part about leaving shrapnel in, as I have a piece in me. I was wounded by a hand grenade booby-trap in Nam and still have one small piece in my right hand between my thumb and finger. The other small pieces came out of my arms and chest, the medics said to just leave them alone and they would surface like a large pimple, and they did. But the one in my hand was deep enough that it stayed, and I just never bothered to have it removed. It is small, the size of a match head, and when I broke my wrist and had screws drilled into the bone near it, the x-ray techs finally came and asked me what kept showing up on the x-rays, they couldn't figure it out...... :mrgreen:

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Re: Shrapnel?

Post by Aughnanure » Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:00 pm

Back in the dim past when I was 10 years old I was in hospital (bullet wound :lol: ) and there was a WW I vet in the same ward.
He had lots of shrapnel in one of his arms, and he showed us kids and let us feel how hard the lumps were. I asked him why they were still in there and he said that when it happened the doctors pulled out all the bits that they could get easily and just left the rest. He said that bits had come out over the years.

His greatest trick, and the one that really impressed the kids, was to hold a small magnet against his skin and it would hang from his arm. :)
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Re: Shrapnel?

Post by Niner Delta » Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:05 pm

When my sons were little, they thought this was a pretty cool trick, too.

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Re: Shrapnel?

Post by Sarge » Wed Oct 31, 2012 3:55 am

I've got enuf scrap iron in me to trigger the metal detectors at the airport if they fine tune the machine.
Mine is also from grenades - 3 in about 2 min, hip, shoulder, arm and gut. That was a very busy night.
I've had a few small pieces pop out over the early years after I got wounded, but the 4 biger pieces are still there.
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