A man was found with a foot-long curved and splintered wooden stick shoved down his throat after claiming “voices” made him swallow it.
The unnamed 52-year-old was rushed to a hospital in Guatemala after he started having intense stomach pain.
And what doctors found was not what they were expecting.
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For when x-rays were taken, they discovered a huge stick poking out from the top of his gullet, and the pain he was suffering was being caused by splinters.
The tiny pieces of wood were scrapping the inside of his lower stomach and intestines.
When asked why he swallowed the stick, he replied that it was because the “voices” in his head told him to.
The only way to remove the stick – after unsuccessful attempts at yanking it out – was through surgery.
A hole was cut in the bloke's stomach and the stick was eventually removed.
Once out, doctors at the Roosevelt Hospital in Guatemala City measured it, and found that it was a whopping one foot long and a painful 0.8 inches wide – it had somehow not managed to damage any other organs.
Despite part of the stick being in his windpipe, it was low enough so that he could still breathe.
The man was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
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In a report about the incident, which happened in December 2022, a spokesman said: “The oesophageal foreign body in the present case is the largest currently reported.”
This is not the first case of a bloke oddly swallowing a stick-like object.
A man being tested for coronavirus was rushed to hospital after accidentally swallowing the entire swab stick in September 2020.
The patient had to visit Hull Royal Infirmary after the incident.
It was unclear how it happened, and the hospital never commented, but the stick was eventually removed.
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