India: Man swallows toothbrush while brushing, needs surgery
It took nearly 35 minutes to get the brush out of the Arunachal Pradesh man’s stomach
Can you accidentally swallow an entire toothbrush while brushing your teeth? Doctors in the Indian state Arunachal Pradesh recently had to remove a toothbrush lodged in a man's stomach, after he claimed that he had swallowed it by mistake while brushing.
The 39-year-old resident of Roing Lower Dibang Valley said that he was trying to clean tooth cavities when the brush slipped from his hand.
Though the accident happened on September 15, news reports about the surgery went viral today, not just in India, but also worldwide. And, Twitter users are finding the explanation quite bizarre.
Tweep @NickMendozaNYC asked: “How… does somebody swallow a toothbrush? Not buying it... He shoved it down his own throat.”
And, @AlhajiMetomi posted: “How did he manage that. Maybe he pushed it in himself, because I don't think it is that easy to swallow such a lengthy toothbrush. So weird!”
Alarmed, the man’s family members rushed him to the Bakin Pertin General Hospital where an X-ray was conducted. However, the doctors could not locate the toothbrush in the man's esophagus.
A surgeon said that the brush must have entered the stomach, and suggested a laparotomy test. Surprisingly, the patient wasn’t experiencing much pain after ingesting the toothbrush. “He only felt a minor discomfort in his upper abdomen,” a doctor told news media outlets.
Fearing that further delay could worsen the patient's condition within 24 hours of the incident, the doctors decided to conduct a minor surgery to remove the brush.
According to a local news report, a doctor said that it took about 30- 35 minutes to operate upon him and take the toothbrush out from his abdomen.
Doctors confirmed that the patient's condition was stable after the surgery, and he would recover soon.