Photos: Doctors Battles Hard To Save Man Who Swallowed Mobile Phone

 

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.