Daily Times

Doctors in Lithuania removed on Friday more than a kilogram of nails and screws from the stomach of a man. He had started swallowing metallic objects after quitting alcohol.

The man, who was not identified for reasons of patient confidentiality, was admitted to hospital in the Baltic port city of Klaipeda with severe abdominal pain.

An X-ray of his stomach also showed pieces of metal — some measuring up to 10 centimetres (four inches).

“During the three-hour operation with X-ray control doctors removed all foreign bodies, even the smallest ones, in the patient’s stomach”. Surgeon Sarunas Dailidenas said this in a statement.

The hospital provided local media with a photograph of a surgical tray heaped with nails and screws.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” Algirdas Šlepavičius, head surgeon at Klaipeda Hospital told local media.

The doctor said that the man had begun swallowing the metal objects over the last month. He begun swallowing them after he had stopped drinking. The patient was in a stable condition following the operation, he added.