U.S. man tries to remove his hernia with a butter knife

A Southern California man was taken by ambulance to hospital after he tried to remove a painful hernia from his own body with a butter knife,

The wife of the 63-year-old Glendale man called emergency services when she discovered his attempt at self-surgery to remove the protruding hernia, police said.

"She said he had impaled himself with a knife," Sergeant Lorenz said, Associated Press reports.

Officers found the man naked on a patio lounge chair outside his apartment with a 15-centimeter butter knife sticking out of his stomach, AP says.

He was upset by the hernia and wanted to get it out, his wife told police.

While waiting for paramedics, he apparently pulled out the knife and stuffed a cigarette into the bleeding, open wound, police said.

"What he was thinking, I don't know. I don't know if he was cauterizing it [the wound]," Sergeant Lorenz said.

The man wasn't screaming or showing any signs of pain, he said.

The man was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center for psychiatric assessment.

"You just never know what to expect," said Lorenz, who has been on the police force for 29 years. "I've seen self-mutilation, but not a maneuver like this", AP reports.

Doctors say he has probably made his condition worse, AFP reports.