We have seen bizarre medical incidents take place in the past — be it that of doctors taking out 639 nails from a man's stomach, that of removing 72 coins on another occasion or even a 13kg poop-filled colon in yet another disturbing incident. Joining the league is another man who was operated upon recently and the doctors pulled out a lighter that he swallowed 20 years ago. Yes, let that sink in. We will wait. While the doctors said it was the man's sheer luck that the lighter did not travel to his intestines and make his condition fatal, that the butane chemical inside the lighter did not leak in his guts was another stroke of luck in his favour. The incident took place in China's Sichuan province, where a man went to the hospital after he had severe stomach ache and found blood in his stool. When an endoscopy was conducted, the doctors found a "long and black" object inside his stomach, according to local media reports. According to Jiangxi Network Television, as quoted by Daily Mail, the man was informed that the stray object was shiny and nine centimetres long. Doctors told the man, reportedly in his forties, that they suspected the object to be a lighter and that is when he remembered having swallowed one by mistake two decades ago. He stated that it hadn't caused any problem up until now, according to Shanghaiist. Because of the smooth surface of the lighter, the doctors could not retrieve it from the man's gut in the first attempt itself and had to conduct a second operation. According to Straits Times, the doctors pulled the object out, which was in a corroded state by now, in a matter of just ten minutes, after they managed to get the lighter inside the latex hood. They then use forceps and guided the object out of his oesophagus.
