A Florida man eating at a restaurant with his wife recently sneezed so hard it caused parts of his intestines to come out of his body through a surgical wound, according to researchers.
A man sneezed so hard that he expelled his intestine outside his body
The case, published in the May 2024 edition of the American Journal of Medical Case Reports, describes the unnamed man as a 63-year-old man with a history of prostate cancer, according to idependent.co.uk.
While undergoing treatments for a post-cancer relapse, he encountered various health complications and the man underwent a cystectomy, a procedure to remove the urinary bladder, 15 days before the incident at the restaurant, leaving him with a surgical wound scarred abdomen.
On the morning of the sneeze, the man’s doctors reported that he was healing well and could remove the staples binding the wound.
He and his wife went out for breakfast at a restaurant to celebrate.
“During breakfast, the man sneezed heavily, followed by coughing. He immediately noticed a feeling of “wetness” and pain in the lower abdomen. Looking down, he noticed several loops of pink intestine protruding from the site of his recent surgery”the researchers write.
Stunned, the man covered the bump with his shirt and thought about going to the hospital himself, but he feared that changing his position might worsen the wound and called an ambulance.
Paramedics who arrived on the scene covered the wound with a sterile compress and administered painkillers to the man, taking him to the emergency department of a nearby hospital.
There, measurements showed his vital signs within normal limits.
“Three urological surgeons carefully reduced the eviscerated intestine back into the abdominal cavity”, the distribution study continues. “They inspected the entire length of the small intestine and saw no evidence of injury.”
The journal notes that this case is an important one because it fills the gaps in the literature regarding dehiscence, wound dehiscence.
“While wound dehiscence is a well-known complication, this case is important because evisceration through abdominal surgical area after cystectomy is poorly described in the medical literature“, concludes the article.
