7/19/2003: Fork in the throat

Doctor Nikola shows a fork that was removed from an Israeli woman who swallowed it while trying to catch a bug that flew in to her mouth, in Poriah Hospital northern Israel July 10, 2003. Doctors performed emergency surgery and removed the fork.

Huh?!?

To hell with the fork, I wanna see the damn bug! What kind of bug causes you to instinctively reach for a fork when it flies down your throat? Something like this, maybe?

<img src="http://members.iinet.net.au/~jaherne/alienhost/xenomorph/queen3.jpg" height="76" width="178">

Maybe that woman can qualify for next year's World Stupidity Awards.

I saw the x-ray that showed the bug too. Not very impressive, really. I want to know how the fork got sideways so high up in her body?

Really, that's about right

Well, now. Swallowed a fork, did we? Nice Xray.

Really, that's about right for the lie of the stomach ( upper abdomen, left to right), and for a long, rigid foreign body in same. It won't make the next turn into the very twisty duodenum, so it's stuck there. If she's lucky, the tines of the fork didn't poke holes in anything vital.

No doubt, it was removed endoscopically (no cutting/surgery), so she can go back to bug-hunting when she desires.

Welcome to the Cellar Doc.
Thanks for the input. I was fooled by the position of all those little A's and B's in the commercials.

Makes me think of the Jackass movie, where the guy inserted a toy car up his ass and then went to the doctor to get an X-ray.

How's that old nursery rhyme go?

"She swallowed a fork to catch the fly, I don't know why she swallowed a fly, poor old women she'll probably die!"

You can see all the lyrics to the old fok song/fairy tale/poem of "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly..." all the way from the fly to the horse she swallowed (she died of course) on this page. (found via google, of course).

Hmmm. Fork. Interesting variation.

I'm a lot more used to the bozos (and bozettes) who swallow razor blades (in case you were wondering, the standard of care is just to let them pass). We had a woman admitted a couple of weeks ago that had swallowed 6. Not a Guinness World Record by any stretch of the imagination, but still impressive in terms of her perseverance.