The man who swallowed his MOBILE PHONE

… Astonished surgeons operate to remove device from 29-year-old’s stomach Doctors have described the incredible case of a man who swallowed his mobile phone – and had to have it surgically removed. The 29-year-old prisoner was rushed to A&E in Dublin after vomiting for four hours. Known to have psychiatric and social issues, he told […]

… Astonished surgeons operate to remove device from 29-year-old’s stomach

Doctors have described the incredible case of a man who swallowed his mobile phone – and had to have it surgically removed.
The 29-year-old prisoner was rushed to A&E in Dublin after vomiting for four hours.
Known to have psychiatric and social issues, he told staff he had swallowed his mobile phone six hours earlier.
After being admitted, he was put on strict ‘nil by mouth’ orders.
At first, a chest X-ray showed the device was resting in the part of the abdomen just above the stomach.
Eight hours later, scans revealed the phone had moved to his stomach but had not progressed into his bowel.
As a result, doctors at The Adelaide and Meath Hospital decided to operate, according to a write-up in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports.
First, surgeons inserted an endoscope – a long, thin, flexible tube with a light and a video camera at the end – so they could locate the phone and drag it out of the patient’s stomach via his oesophagus.
But when this failed, they were forced to perform a laparotomy – where a large incision is made in the abdomen – and the device was successfully retrieved. 
When the device was measured it, it was found to be 6.8 × 2.3 × 1.1 cm.
‘As the patient was a prisoner, the mobile phone had to be sent as a specimen for forensic examination,’ the doctors wrote in the journal.
Four months later, they saw him again and noted he had recovered well.
Surgery such as a laparotomy is required in less than 1 per cent of cases where people ingest foreign bodies, the doctors noted.
Around 10 – 20 per cent of patients undergo an endoscopy, which is the preferred procedure as it is less invasive and does not result in scarring.  
Another paper in the journal BMJ Case reports said swallowing foreign objects is mostly reported in children younger than three years of age.
Coins and bones are the objects most commonly ingested.
Normally, the objects are passed naturally, but there is a high risk thin, sharp objects can perforate parts of the body.

Culled from dailymail.co.uk