A forensic doctor with more than 15,000 autopsies under his belt had never seen anything like it. When Dr. Santu Bag made an incision in the throat of Anand Yadav, 35, he found a 20-centimeter chick stuck in a U-shape, blocking both the airway and the esophagus at the same time. The bird was still alive.
Yadav had arrived dead at the hospital in Ambikapur, in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, on December 14, 2024. He had collapsed at home shortly after bathing, and doctors initially found nothing unusual in his organs. The real cause of his death—asphyxiation—was only revealed on the autopsy table.
According to neighbors in the village of Chhindkalo, a local tantric had convinced him that swallowing a live chick would cure his infertility. Yadav and his wife had been married for years without being able to have children. The case is under police investigation. In India, some 27.5 million people suffer from infertility, and medical treatments such as in vitro fertilization have proven success rates—something that, tragically, Yadav never considered. 🐣
