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Shrapnel Pile Found in WWII Vet’s Remains
World War II veteran Ronald Brown of Exeter, England, died last week at 94 and left behind a surprising war memento in his cremated remains: six ounces of metal shrapnel.
Brown was on a mission in France in 1944 when he stepped on a land mine and searing metal shrapnel became lodged in his leg, according to the BBC. The 21-year-old then crawled two miles to find help.
Though Brown carried the odd memento with him for nearly 70 years, he often just told people he had a “bad knee.”
“The medics just said it was too close to an artery and stitched him back up again,” Brown’s daughter,Jane Madden, 55, told the BBC.
It’s not unheard of for military veterans to carry unpleasant war mementos inside their bodies, according to Dr. Michael Sise, trauma medical director of Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego.
“Plenty of American veterans of modern wars are carrying around shrapnel,” Sise, a retired Navy surgeon and Gulf War veteran, told ABC news.com. “People will survive with artillery rounds, small fragments, all sorts of things. It is not uncommon. Now, in the modern era, doing so many CAT scans, we find shrapnel all the time. We ask these patients: Were you in a war? And they often were.”
Removing shrapnel often causes more damage than leaving it in, Sise said, which means Brown’s doctors probably did the right thing in 1944.
h/t Rusty Anvil
Mountain Dog
October 21st, 2012
The picture is misleading. That’s not shrapnel from a mine. Note the drywall screw.
Chunks of jagged steel would be more accurate.
Doc
October 21st, 2012
Besides the fact that my ass is too big to fit in a airplane seat, this is another reason I don’t fly. I had to explain to a TSA agent why I set off a metal detector…it took a while for it to soak in.
Doc
October 21st, 2012
I agree with Mountain Dog, that looks more like the shit under my workbench that shrapnel!
scr_north
October 21st, 2012
I thank the good man for his service and am glad that he lived a long and presumably happy life and that his wounds didn’t bother him too much but I have to wondered whether he set off the detectors at the airport. His grandaughter mentioned that when he visited the States he always set off the detectors. Just imagine the chaos that would ensue within the ranks of the TSA when this happened (at least among the ones that weren’t strip searching a elderly grandmother in a wheelchair). Yes I know, I’m an insensitve clod. In any event RIP Trooper Brown.
Mountain Dog
October 21st, 2012
My father in law had shrapnel in his head from WW2 which contributed to his death.
I have a piece of hardened steel from a shattered truck U-joint in my leg. It doesn’t give me as much trouble as all the other wear and tear from working on diesels. It will set off a hand-held but not the big scanners you walk through. I won’t fly anyway until they get rid of TSA.
Piker
October 21st, 2012
Looks like a pile of cotter pins.
Fred
October 21st, 2012
God bless the gentleman and all Allied servicemen and women. It’s not unusual for such folks to dismiss their own pain suffering. This story reminds me of Eric Lomax who just passed away: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/9596599/Eric-Lomax.html
He too had to carry something–memories of being tortured.
We need to remember all our Vets and be grateful for their sacrifices. I make a point of thanking them wherever & whenever I encounter them.
serfer62
October 21st, 2012
This much metal in a leg? No torn & jagged steel? The photo is not from the Brit…
Cornoil
October 21st, 2012
Need to know what type the mine was to be sure of the shrapnel – or so I would think.
Chieftain
October 21st, 2012
Some grenades and anti-personnel mines do indeed use notched wire in the body of the grenade to provide shrapnel when they explode. But when the weapon goes off it sends the pieces in all directions, more or less evenly in an expanding sphere. So even if you are right next to it when it goes off, most of the shrapnel misses you because it is going in another direction.
Much of that wire looks bent rather than fractured in an explosion, and there are smooth round pieces that are too smooth to be shrapnel. The screw could be a surgical screw but there appears to be only one.
I’m sure that any retained shrapnel in a body would remain after cremation, but this picture ain’t it.
Jethro
October 21st, 2012
That picture looks more like the metal you would find inside a cows stomach – a cow that gazes near a junk pile.
They put magnets inside cows stomachs to catch this stuff so it doesn’t damage the intestines.
http://www.ehow.com/about_6612634_cow-magnet_.html
.
That little bit of trivia shouldn’t distract from this article. Those were brave men – the greatest generation. Pray to God this generation can perform at that level if necessary.
Piker
October 21st, 2012
I’m thinking that this picture is a collection of whatever metal they found after completely sweeping out the crematoria…maybe it’s the bits of metal used in the making of the caskets or something…somewhere in that pile is the actual shrapnel they were looking for.
Boobie the Rocket Dog
October 21st, 2012
“Battle-hardened” ghetto rats are often undone by bullets, buckshot, etc. found inside them on X-rays decades later.
Andy
October 21st, 2012
Piker is right.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-20001326
Richard Powell, from the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities, said most coffins were built using screws and staples and some of these could have remained after a cremation.
"That Guy"
October 21st, 2012
There are always a few questions that come up whenever I have a head and neck x-ray, or a panoramic dental x-ray, due to the 9 pieces of steel shot I carry around, but it ain’t nuthin like what is in that picture!:eek:
Troy
October 21st, 2012
Imagine the dull metal and crap they will find in Joe Biden’s head when they do that autopsy?
Unruly Refugee
October 21st, 2012
@”That Guy”
Damn! You should change your handle to , “That LUCKY Guy.” Lucky to be alive.
Unruly Refugee
October 21st, 2012
I think that picture is of floor sweepings from an automotive shop picked up with a magnet. That much shrapnel in a leg would tear the leg completely off or mangle it so bad it would have to be amputated.
God Bless the Heroes who take the “flak” for us.