what is a butterfly bone?

Question

long story short cant provide too much deatil:::

there was a fight at my school. One boy got beat up pretty badly. There was internal bleeding, either in front of or behind his kidneys. & his "butterfly bone" got broken. what exactly is the butterfly bone? is that the bone thats at the very end of ur ribs that parametics have to be careful of when giving cpr?

Answer 1

i think they're talking about the sphenoid bone...read this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphenoid_bone

the bone runs the length of the skull right up the the nasal bones. it's very likely that a bad beating could damage it, among other bones in and around the face.

Answer 2

I have never heard the term butterfly bone but from your description that the bleeding was near the kidneys I would say the pelvis was the bone broken. I never thought about it before but I guess it kinda looks like a butterfy. The pelvis is made up of three bones that are fused together, the illim, ischium and pubic bones. There are two halves that when the skelton is complete have the spinal column between the halves in the back.