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Victor
Lv 7
Victor asked in HealthOther - Health · 1 decade ago

What do hospitals do with amputated limbs?

This might sound a little morbid, but after reading about Zsa Zsa having her right leg amputated, I got to wondering what hospitals actually do with amputated body parts. Do they donate them to science facilities or just destroy them ? I remember a while back Michael Jackson wanted to buy the Elephant Man's remains. I can't imagine that a hospital would actually sell a celebrity's limb.

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    In general, amputated limbs are disposed of along with the rest of the hospital's bio-hazardous waste (by a special contractor who takes the waste to be incinerated). However, in special cases (generally involving religious beliefs) a person can ask to have their body part preserved and returned to them, presumably to be buried separately or along with the rest of their body at death.

  • 1 decade ago

    I suppose they dispose of them. I'm not sure. But I do know that once a limb is detached from your body, it belongs to the government, not yourself :P. Oh, and that was a crazy rumour, Michael didn't want to buy the elephant man's bones. Watch the Oprah interview, he laughs at it and asks 'what would I do with bones?'

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    They are sent to a surgical pathology laboratory for analysis. I remember seeing a whole leg, from the hip down, in the fridge at a lab i used to work at. EVERYTHING they take out of or off of a patient ends up at the lab first, we even had umbrellas (don't ask, you really don't wanna know where it was removed from)

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Dispose of them in Bio-hazard waste.

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    They burn them because amputated limbs usually gather and make a zombie which would be bad for everyone not expecting it.

    Source(s): I am an expert in Zombie Killing.
  • 1 decade ago

    All hospitals have places that they can burn body parts.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    they either dispose of them, take specific parts of them, or sell them to other hospitals for research

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    they either burn them or destroy them in some way

  • 1 decade ago

    Attach them to dead men walking perhaps? :)

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    go around high 5ing each other

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