Direct link to image (not gross or anything)
What kind of surgery would produce scars like these? He seems to have 3 horizontal scars that have healed as ‘trenches’ and a vertical scar going up the middle of his stomach. The hole in the tattoo is apparently either a drain hole or a gunshot wound. In either case, why is it so deep, can’t modern medicine close over a hole of this size?
Whatever it was, it may have been life-threatening, in which case the docs are focused on life-saving, not making the scars pretty. Afterwards, a plastic/reconstructive surgeon can do “scar revision” which, while it will not eliminate scars, attempts to “fill them in” or make the less obvious. It could be the man simply didn’t want a further round of surgery to do this. It could be it was attempted but there was so much underlying tissue damage that essentially you’d have skin over an open pit, so to speak, which wouldn’t work long term.
My scar goes from the bottom of my rib cage to the top of my pelvic area - much like his. Mine is much wider. I have no horizontal scars though. I do have several round scars on the side from different times when I had a feeding tube.
I don’t know what might have caused his - mine was caused when my stomach perforated and they had to go in a perform major surgery on it.
Did you get a really classy tattoo afterwards? 
I actually posted here asking if a scar will hold ink - so I did give it some thought. But in the end, I did nothing.
My bro had an emergency appendectomy that’s similar to the guy’s vertical scar in the picture. My brother’s doesn’t extend nearly as far up as that man’s does, however - his ends maybe an inch, two inches or so above his bellybutton.
I would guess the deep hole with the tattoo around it is from a PEG tube. My dad has a similar ‘hole’ from his, which he had for over 2 years because he couldn’t swallow.
NM
Unless the photo has been flipped, it looks like the wrong side to be a gastric feeding tube. It looks like it could have been an old colostomy site. If the other scars were from a trauma, he could have had a temporary colostomy that was taken down at a later operation.
