Doctor tries to sell the X-ray of a Bataclan attack survivor depicting lodged Kalashnikov bullet as NFT

Among many an example of the NFT craze going out of hand, that of a French surgeon selling X-ray images of a patient who survived the 2015 terrorist attack in the Bataclan concert hall will perhaps remain a beacon for a while. Not a shining beacon, though, as the woman whose X-ray became an NFT item never gave her permission for it. Emmanuel Masmejean, a lead orthopedic surgeon from the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital, uploaded a roentgenogram of the woman's arm visualizing a Kalashnikov bullet past her broken bone on OpenSea, one of the largest NFT trading platforms, asking the equivalent of US$2776 for it. The weekend NFT listing has been subsequently pulled down, but we found the surgeon's item description in the cached OpenSea page, titled "Bataclan terrorist attack - November 13, 2015 - Paris, France":

On November 13th, 2015, terrorist bomb explosions and gunshots occurred in Paris, France, with 129 people immediately killed, and more than 300 being injured. Forty one patients were referred to our center, the Teaching Georges-Pompidou European Hospital, and 22 requiring surgery were hospitalized. From November 14th at 0:41 A.M. to November 15th at 1:10 A.M., 23 surgical interventions were performed on 22 casualties. Among these patients, I did personally operate on 5 women, including this case. This young patient, who lost her boyfriend in this attack, had an open fracture of the left forearm with a remaining bullet of Kalashnikov in soft tissues.

Mr. Masmejean contacted the Bataclan terror attack survivor on Sunday to explain the reasoning behind the NFT listing of her X-ray, yet the patient has now started legal action against him and he will also be subjected to disciplinary charges. The surgeon didn't demonstrate "the slightest regret nor empathy towards her," commented her lawyer Elodie Abraham, and continued:

This doctor, not content with breaking the duty of medical secrecy towards this patient, thought it would be a good idea to describe the private life of this young woman, making her perfectly identifiable.

Get the Ledger Nano X Crypto Secure Hardware Wallet on Amazon