Surgery reveals 20-year-old secret inside man's body
A 32-year-old man accidentally swallowed it at age 12. Surgeons successfully removed it without any damage, leaving many astonished at his luck.
A 40-year-old man in Jiangxi, China, underwent surgery for severe stomach pain and had a lighter he swallowed 20 years ago removed from his stomach.
The object was a cigarette lighter, which was found in a heavily corroded, but still intact, state after two decades in his gut.
The man only recalled swallowing it by mistake two decades prior, after doctors identified the foreign object on a scan.
The lighter was removed using endoscopic surgery. The first attempt to remove it failed due to the object's smooth surface, but a second, 10-minute operation successfully removed it using a protective bag, say reports.
Doctors noted that the man was incredibly lucky that the lighter did not break or leak, which could have been fatal, or travel to his intestines, which would have caused further complications.
In other similar reports, a Vietnamese man had 15 cm of scissors removed 18 years after a car accident, and a 20-year-old in India had 23 sharp items, including hairpins, safety pins, and razor blades, removed in 2023.
