A New York Yankee minor leaguer who lives in Venezuela, Thairo Estrada, was shot in the hip during a botched robbery attempt in his home country. According to the New York Post, the bullet remains lodged in his hip and there are no plans to remove it. In fact, he has started rehab and exercising with the bullet still there. Could it remain there forever? Not understanding this.
Well, after he dies and and his skeleton completely erodes, probably not. If your asking if a foreign body can remain in the body without any adverse effects leading to death, sure. You probably have some in your teeth.
Sometimes the surgery removing foreign material causes more harm than leaving it there. It doesn’t mean there will be no problems. It’s just the best choice they can make. If at a later date it proves to be an issue they’d address it then.
I’ve known a number of people who have had various life events leaving them with chucks of metal in them. They function just fine.
I have a small piece of gravel embedded in my left palm. Has been there for 39 years. It occasionally hits a nerve when I grip something hard in a particular way, but other than that it causes no issueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Most people have some small foreign bodies stuck under their skin somewhere. Perhaps nothing as big as a bullet, but a lot of gunshot victims will end up with a bullet permanently lodged in them instead of removed. Sometimes the procedure to remove it will be riskier than just leaving it there. Other times it may be impossible to remove it without doing severe damage to surrounding tissue. Your body is actually fairly good about healing around and isolating solid foreign objects.
“Have to remove the bullet” is Hollywood fiction. The lead involved, even if an unjacketed bullet, is likely inert. More damage can be done by digging around.
Thanks to all who contributed to increasing my knowledge in this thread
Depends it seems. If the bullet is lodged and hasn’t caused any bone fractures than it seems to not be as much of an issue. Whereas bone fracture in combination with a lead bullet can lead to increased lead levels.
Many factors it seems.
Yeah, I blame Hollywood for this popular misconception. I’ve seen assorted movies and TV episodes where someone is threatening to die after being shot and the act of removing the bullet (usually with a shot of bullet going “clink” onto a metal tray) magically makes them recover. Surgery after a gunshot wound is done to fix the holes that the bullet put in various structures, not to recover the bullet.
That said, occasionally the bullet does cause problems later. When I was a resident I saw a patient in clinic who had been shot at some point in the past and the bullet had migrated slightly so that it was sitting just under the skin where it caused a bump that was rubbing against his clothes. A little local anesthesia, a small incision and we removed the bullet during the clinic appointment.
My Father-in-Law had shrapnel in his nose from the invasion of Holland. He died only 3 years ago, and it caused him no problem, and so it was left to be.
On the other hand:
You mean a gunshot wound is not fixed with a bandage as long as it gets you in the shoulder? :dubious:
Right, it will be removed if it is safe to do so. Any potential migration of shrapnel might be a concern later on and might be monitored.
Depends - where in the shoulder? 
I’ve seen gunshots to the shoulder that hit nothing but muscle and were literally discharged with a band-aid over the wound. But if the bullet shattered the shoulder joint you better hope the orthopedic surgeon on call is good at jigsaw puzzles.
My dad had shrapnel in his leg from October 1944 until his death in 2013. When he was about 85, he told me he was now officially an old man. I asked what he meant. He said that when he was wounded, he asked a doctor if the shrapnel in his leg would cause any problems. “Not until you are an old, old man,” was the doctor’s reply. My dad then said it hurts now so I must be an old man.
Many have carried bullets in them for a very long time. Teddy Roosevelt did from 1912 til his death in 1919.
Shrapnel is different from bullets though–it’s generally a sharp piece of metal which has more potential to “migrate” than the typical bullet, which I believe ends up as a sort of lump. Obviously bullets can migrate too as noted above. IANA shrapnel, bullet, or medical expert.
Considering the concept killed James Garfield in 1881, it hardly originated in Hollywood.
The bullet that hit him would have been fine left alone, but the attempts to find it (including sticking dirty fingers into the wound) let to the infection that killed him.
Which is what lead to Roosevelt opting not to have the bullet removed after his assassination attempt.
When I was a teenager I was in a car accident. A part of the diver’s door went into my side leaving a wound with lots of paint and glass in it. At the hospital they spent some time cleaning it out but, for many years afterwards, I would get an occasional “pimple” in the area that would contain a tiny sliver of glass or grey paint.
Err, isn’t that the exact opposite of the Hollywood concept?
That and he was a mothafuckin’ Bull Moose!