Woman who bored a hole into her head live on TV
A woman who drilled a hole in her head in an attempt to cure her health problems has died – ten years later.
Heather Perry, 41, was filmed for US television as she performed the ancient practice known as trepanning, an inquest heard yesterday.
She believed it would relieve pressure on her brain, but the attempt ended with her being taken to hospital because she drilled too deeply.
Miss Perry survived and returned home to Newent, Gloucestershire, but turned to drugs.
The inquest heard she had been arrested on suspicion of supplying drugs two days
HEATHER PERRY, 41, WAS FILMED FOR US TELEVISION AS SHE PERFORMED THE ANCIENT PRACTICE KNOWN AS TREPANNING, AN INQUEST HEARD YESTERDAY
before her death, in April this year.
After the hearing, her brother Keith said: ‘She thought the trepanning would be the answer to all her problems but obviously it wasn’t.
‘I do wonder whether it actually had an effect on her brain and led to what happened later, but we shall never know.
‘There was medical help on offer but she just kept on going back to the same people and to drugs.’
Miss Perry claimed in an interview with science blog Neurophilosophy in 2008 that she was inspired to go through with the procedure after hearing John Lennon had wanted to do it.
By her 20s she had begun to suffer headaches brought on by taking ‘a lot of acid, which kind of mashed up my brain a bit’. So at 29 she travelled to America, where the practice is legal in some states, enlisting the help of Peter Halvorson, a self-styled expert who had performed trepanation on himself in the 1970s.
In an interview given after the procedure, Miss Perry said she had ‘no regrets’ and had experienced a ‘definite improvement’ in her health.
‘I know what I’ve done sounds totally horrific and I know most people will think it is extremely dangerous,’ she said.
‘I’m the first to admit it sounds totally ridiculous and I can understand the reaction I’ve provoked.
‘But I felt something radical needed to be done.’ Deputy Gloucestershire coroner Katy Skerrett recorded that Miss Perry died as a result of drug dependency.
One of the most famous people to undergo trepanning is Amanda Feilding, now 69, the Countess of Wemyss and March, wife of the landowning 13th Earl, and a friend of the Royal Family.
She used a dentist’s drill to perform the procedure at 23.
Trepanning involves the removal of a piece of bone from the skull, and it has been performed since prehistoric times.
Cave paintings indicate that people believed the practice would cure epileptic seizures, headaches and mental disorders.
The oldest samples of skulls with bore holes drilled into them were found in a burial site in France dating back to 6,500BC.
But it was also used by the Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Romans, Greeks and the early Mesoamerican civilizations.
Even the ‘father of medicine’ Hippocrates (pictured) advocated the process in his 400BC tome ‘On Injuries of the Head’.
Modern exponents say it increases blood flow in the brain, increasing lucidity and heightening brain function.