In a shocking incident, a US man’s colon was put back into his body after it fell out after a “forceful” sneeze, as per a report in the New York Post. The 63-year-old from Florida was having breakfast with his wife at a restaurant when the incident took place.
Notably, the man had battled prostate cancer and had undergone abdominal surgery before the incident occurred. On the morning of his bowel “evisceration,” he had sutures taken out of his abdomen.
A recent paper published in the American Journal of Medical Case Reports details his unusual case and medical recovery. It said, “During breakfast, the man sneezed forcefully, followed by coughing. He immediately noticed a ‘wet’ sensation and pain in his lower abdomen. Looking down, he observed several loops of pink bowel protruding from his recent surgical site.”
The man covered the exposed intestines with his shirt while his wife called for an ambulance. Upon their arrival, paramedics saw an “approximately 3-inch vertical laceration with large amounts of bowel” poking through it. Fortunately, the man had not lost much blood, and he was taken quickly to a local hospital.
“In the Emergency Department, the Urology service was consulted immediately. Vital signs were within normal limits. Pre-operative blood tests were obtained and noted to be unchanged from recent comparisons. A nasogastric tube was inserted, and the patient consented to receive an exploratory laparotomy,” the paper added.
The eviscerated bowel was carefully put back into the abdominal cavity by three surgeons, who also “inspected the full length of the small bowel and noted no evidence of injury.”
To ensure that the abdomen did not pop open again, the three urological surgeons closed it with a sequence of figure-of-eight stitches, which are among the strongest closures. The 63-year-old was in the hospital for six days and put on a normal diet before discharge.
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