Looks like Ireland is still crazy.
Doctors in Ireland had to remove 50 AA and other "cylindrical" batteries from the body of a 66-year-old woman who had swallowed them all on purpose, a recent article in the Irish Medical Journal says.
When doctors at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin first examined the woman, they didn’t know exactly how many batteries she had swallowed and how many remained in her body.
They were able to help her pass five AA batteries without surgical intervention, but x-rays showed 50 more large batteries were still there after three weeks of monitoring. The woman began complaining of widespread abdominal pain and loss of appetite.
Doctors decided to perform surgery on the woman’s abnormally swollen stomach and removed 46 batteries. They also found four more batteries in her colon.
. . .
The surgeries were a success, and the patient made "an uneventful recovery," doctors said.
"To the best of our knowledge, this case represents the highest reported number of batteries ingested at a single point in time," doctors noted in the journal.
There's more at the link.
Did she offer any resistance to treatment? And dare I presume that after the surgery, she was dis-charged from the hospital . . . to go ohm?
Peter
We've seen a lot like that.
ReplyDeleteOne guy came in for swallowing two dollars in quarters.
Our P.A., who, looked like Frank Whalley in Career Opportunities, hears the triage summary and says deadpan:
"Call me if there's any change."
Ba-doomp.
X-ray shows he has a hardware store in his stomach. Safety pins, needles, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, a small piggybank's worth of coins, buttons, lapel pins, etc.
Treatment: "Stop doing that."
Later, on his discharge note, he writes:
"Discharge pt. home.
Paper taxi voucher only!
Do not give him a bus token!"
@Aesop. ROFLMAO at the bus token!
ReplyDelete@Peter. Really? Your puns are reVOLTing!
We had a girl from the local juvie detention center keep getting brought in when she told the jail staff she swallowed batteries or broken CD's. (Yeah, this was a while back)
ReplyDeleteShe never had anything and we supposed she was just doing it for a trip out of the jail and to break up the boredom.
That is until the one time she came in with a stomach full of batteries....
I know it's Ireland, but do you suppose tequila could have been involved?
ReplyDeleteIt's shocking what some people will do to catch a buzz. On the other hand she could probably re-charge her cell phone by inserting into the ...
ReplyDeleteNo. Not going to go there ;)
JWM
Watt was she thinking?
ReplyDeleteFifty batteries? Sounds like she was at capacity.
ReplyDeleteFor a suitably recuperative post-op vacation, they should send her to Rio, stat!
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ReplyDeleteDid her electrolytes get out of balance?
ReplyDeleteThe question is, why do people do these things? (I discount my 2 year old daughter thinking she had swallowed some Spanish coins - she hadn't but then she was 2!)
ReplyDeleteSince she's done this repeatedly, the doctors are ever ready to intervene.
ReplyDeleteThis story is shocking.
ReplyDelete- Borepatch