What seemed impossible was captured on an X-ray. A 29-year-old man arrived at the emergency department after claiming he had swallowed an entire cell phone, and the images confirmed that the device was still inside his stomach.
The case occurred in Ireland and was published in a scientific journal in 2016. The patient, who was a prisoner, arrived at the hospital with vomiting approximately 10 hours after ingesting the phone. Doctors performed an abdominal X-ray and found the device in his stomach. Eight hours later, another X-ray showed that it had practically not moved through the digestive tract.
The specialists decided to try to remove it by endoscopy. However, they encountered an unexpected problem: the phone could not be properly aligned with the instruments used to extract it. Trying to remove it that way could cause injuries to the esophagus.
After the failed attempt, the doctors had to resort to surgery. They made an incision in the abdomen and opened the stomach directly to remove the cell phone, which was eventually extracted without major complications.
The patient recovered without complications and later received psychological support before being discharged.
But the most impressive thing was captured in the medical images: an X-ray that seems to show something impossible… a whole cell phone resting inside a person’s stomach.