Some old soldiers from the 1914-18 war proudly displayed hard objects that they had in their pockets that had deflected a piece of shrapnel or ricocheting bullet and had thereby saved their lives.

Unfortunately, the converse can apply and a blunt injury can convert a hard or sharp object held close to the abdomen or thorax into a missile and doctors then have to deal with a penetrating injury.

The car accident in which a blow to the abdomen of a woman drove the belly-button stud she was wearing into her peritoneal cavity, and almost to the spine behind it, is a bizarre twist to the story of other people involved in crush accidents that have had pens, lipstick holders and even coins driven into their chests or abdomens.

Penetrating wounds always need to be explored so that the amount of damage they have caused to organs within the abdomen and the blood vessels torn by the hard object, can be assessed, repaired and haemorrhage-controlled.

It is not unusual for there to be collection of blood or a retroperitoneal haematoma in the position where this patient’s stud is now lodged.

Any foreign body, which is far from sterile, that is propelled into the abdomen or even deep into the surrounding tissue, carries with it a load of organisms that may cause an infection.

Doctors who recently refused to do lumbar punctures on women with tattoos over their spine, for fear of introducing infection and a potentially toxic substance into the spinal canal, were perhaps being ultra cautious. The much more common danger is that the needles would have been contaminated with hepatitis C and inadequately sterilised.

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