Hospital Evacuated After Senior Citizen Shows Up with WWI Explosive, Doctors Have to Cut Open His Abdomen to Get to It
Doctors in Toulon, southern France, were surprised when an 88-year-old patient arrived Saturday evening with an 8-inch artillery shell in his rectum.
The patient’s arrival caused a bomb scare, prompting the hospital to evacuate patients.
“An emergency occurred from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Saturday that required the intervention of bomb disposal personnel, the evacuation of adult and pediatric emergencies as well as the diversion of incoming emergencies,” a representative for Hospital Sainte Musse said, according to Daily Mail.
“We had to manage the risk in a reactive framework. When in doubt, we took all the precautions,” the representative added.
Hospital evacuated after 88-year-old man turns up with WW1 bomb stuck in rectum https://t.co/v2ddqCVkyB
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) December 21, 2022
Doctors were initially afraid that the shell could detonate and harm them.
However, their fears were assuaged by bomb disposal experts who assured them that the bomb would not detonate.
“They reassured us by telling us that it was a collector’s item from the First World War, used by the French military,” the hospital said in its statement, the New York Post reported.
Doctors then began to extricate the munition spanning 8 inches in length and 2 inches in width from the rectum.
After taking the man into surgery, they performed an incision in the man’s abdomen and managed to take out the shell.
According to the hospital, the man is recovering and in “good health,” the Daily Mail reported.
“An apple, a mango, or even a can of shaving foam, we are used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” a doctor said, according to the Post. “But a shell? Never!”
According to the outlet, it is believed the man inserted the object into his anus for sexual pleasure.
The Toulon incident is not the first time a patient came to a hospital with a munition up their rectum.
In 2021, army explosives experts in Britain rushed to the accident and emergency department of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital after medics treated a man with a weapon in his rectum, The Sun reported.
The patient told doctors he “slipped and fell” on the armor-piercing shell, which was part of his collection of military memorabilia.
“The guy said he found the shell when he was having a clear out of his stuff. He said he put it on the floor then he slipped and fell on it — and it went up his a**e,” a source told the newspaper at the time.
“He was in a considerable amount of pain. I think he collected military memorabilia,” the source added.
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