You’ve just finished a meal at a friend’s house and ask for a toothpick. They don’t have any, so instead you a) don’t worry about it, b) use your fingernail, or c) use a 10cm-long pair of nail scissors.
If you’re Lin Kong, a 27-year-old man from Putian, China, you take the scissors and use those to clean your teeth. When a friend tells a joke, you laugh, then accidentally swallow the scissors.
The amazing x-rays above were taken when the man was rushed to hospital. He'd already tried coughing the scissors up, but this just embedded them deeeper into his fragile throat tissue.
“When he came in, his face was twisted, pale, and [he was] sweating. The patient was having difficulty swallowing,” Chen Wei, his surgeon, said.
Surgeons worked on the hapless patient for half an hour under a local anaesthetic – a general would have made him too relaxed, making the scissors progress down the throat. Eventually the blades were pulled free.
“Luckily Mr Lin does not have much of a wound left inside his throat,” Dr Wei said.
If you’re Lin Kong, a 27-year-old man from Putian, China, you take the scissors and use those to clean your teeth. When a friend tells a joke, you laugh, then accidentally swallow the scissors.
The amazing x-rays above were taken when the man was rushed to hospital. He'd already tried coughing the scissors up, but this just embedded them deeeper into his fragile throat tissue.
“When he came in, his face was twisted, pale, and [he was] sweating. The patient was having difficulty swallowing,” Chen Wei, his surgeon, said.
Surgeons worked on the hapless patient for half an hour under a local anaesthetic – a general would have made him too relaxed, making the scissors progress down the throat. Eventually the blades were pulled free.
“Luckily Mr Lin does not have much of a wound left inside his throat,” Dr Wei said.
