After a challenging 3 hour surgery, AIIMS doctors removed a 20 cm long knife from a man’s liver who claims he had swallowed it in a fit of psychosis. His vital organs are not damaged, which had amazed the doctors.
This man, who is a daily wage worker from Palwal in Haryana, has the habit of smoking cannabis on a regular basis. He had said that due to the one and half month coronavirus lockdown, he had been smoking up quite often. When he was under the influence of the psychotropic substance, he had felt like eating the knife and had done so with a bit of initial difficulty. There had been no complaints initially, but after a month he had developed issues like weight loss, difficulty in eating and abdominal pain which later became unbearable. After he was taken to Safdarjung Hospital, he was found to have ingested this knife.
The doctors had anticipated the challenges involved and had referred him to the Gastrointestinal Surgery and Liver Transplant wing in AIIMS. After he had been admitted in the emergency ward on July 12, he was tested negative for coronavirus. Following this, surgery was carried out after several medical diagnostic scans.
The doctors had initially put him through antibiotics and attached various tubes to arrest the blood loss and to control sepsis. After this had failed, they had performed surgery on him.