Mysterious BUST saves Woman's Life (True Story)

Excerpt from the TV series
Beyond Belief FACT or Fiction:
Season 4 Episode 12C

Confirmed FACT✅

Dr. Dale Cullen, a successful neurologist for the past 12 years, had difficulty delivering bad news to his patients. During a consultation with Martha Blaine and her husband, he broke the news that she had a tumor after looking at her scans. He explained that the tumor was serious, in a dangerous location and difficult to access, but that surgery had a 50% chance of success. Martha agreed to the surgery, and Dr. Cullen scheduled it as soon as possible.

Dr. Cullen was troubled, as tumors like Martha's usually appeared in much older people. He was consumed with thoughts of her case and even forgot about a date with his wife, Annette. When Annette surprised him with a gift of a phrenologist head, Dr. Cullen was momentarily distracted from his worries. The head was a prop with all the areas of the brain mapped out in a number system, and Annette revealed that it had belonged to Sigmund Freud. She noticed a smudge on the head, which she wiped off.

Later, as Dr. Cullen prepared for Martha's surgery, he noticed the smudge was back in the exact same place. He wiped it clean again, but it reappeared once more. He decided to investigate and looked up section 11 on the numbered map that came with the head. To his surprise, the map was based on old superstitions rather than science, with every human emotion corresponding to a number on the head. Section 11 was labeled as cautiousness. The smudge was in the exact same spot as the tumor, which prompted Dr. Cullen to double-check the records in radiology. It turned out that there had been a filing error, and the MRI belonged to an 88-year-old man named Martin Blaine, not Martha.

Dr. Cullen stopped Martha from going into surgery and informed her that she was fine and could go home. The discovery of the mix-up was a mystery, but it had saved Martha from an unnecessary and dangerous operation.