New Delhi (Sputnik) — Pradip Kumar Dhali, 48, hailing from Gobargdanga in India's eastern state of West Bengal complained of persistent pain in his abdomen and vomited intermittently, following which his family members brought him to a hospital in Kolkata two weeks ago. An endoscopy revealed the presence of a massive build-up of pointed bits of metal in his intestines.
"The patient used to swallow nails regularly. He had a complaint of pain in the stomach and used to vomit regularly. He was brought to Kolkata Medical College two weeks ago from a private nursing home. An endoscopy of the stomach showed the presence of several nails in his intestine. His albumin level was low. We had to stabilize him before the surgery," Dr. Siddhartha Biswas, associate professor of surgery who conducted the operation, told Sputnik.
The upper intestine became so enlarged that it had protruded to his lower abdomen.
"We made a small incision and with the help of magnets pulled out 639 nails weighing 1.06 kilograms and the total weight of foreign particles was over 1.5 kg. It took over 1.5 hours to complete the surgery." Dr. Biswas added.
Meanwhile, in a somewhat similar case last year in Punjab, a team of five doctors operated on a 40-year-old and removed around 40 knives from his stomach. The patient too was mentally unstable. He had claimed that he had an urge to eat knives and had consumed the 40 odd knives over a period of two months.
