Doctors in Hunan have expressed their surprise after operating to remove a six centimetre (2.3 inch) long rusty nail from a man's lung, 32 years after he swallowed it.
The patient, surnamed Song, turns 64 this year and has spent most of his life as a circus artist, reports Rednet.cn. One of his acts was swallowing iron nails.
Recently, Song started coughing up blood and went to a local hospital where a chest x-ray revealed that there was a foreign body in his lung.
Song told reporters that he thought the nail was there as a result of his act. "We used about six-centimetre-long nails that you were supposed to spit out after the act was over," Song explained. How Song failed to notice that he had spat out one less nail than he took is unclear.
Wang Jun, surgeon-in-chief at Xiangya Hospital in Changsha said this was the weirdest medical case he has seen throughout his career. According to Wang, it is a miracle that the nail didn't cause any serious damage while hiding in Song's body for over 30 years.
[Image via Wikipedia // Via GBTimes.com]
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