Man swallows cellphone in Kosovo, undergoes hours long surgery to remove it
- 06 Sep 2021
Mustafa Al Zoubi, Gulf Today
A man who swallowed a Nokia 3310 cellphone underwent a successful procedure earlier this week that potentially saved his life.
Doctors in the city of Pristina, Kosovo operated on the 33-year-old man after the phone had been in his stomach for four days.
Dr. Skender Teljaku, who led the medical team that performed the successful operation, posted photos of the phone that was retrieved from the man’s stomach on Facebook, as well as X-ray and endoscope images showing the foreign object inside the man’s body.
The medical team managed to remove the phone without cutting the stomach open, extracting it in three separate parts using special devices known as endoscopes, Teljaku said on Facebook. The doctor also said that there had been ‘no complications’ during the procedure, which lasted for around two hours.
The man decided to visit the hospital in Pristina, Kosovo's capital and largest city, due to the pain he was experiencing after swallowing the phone.
Teljaku told local news outlet Ekspres that the battery was the most hazardous part of the phone because it could explode and release chemicals into the gut of the man, whose life was potentially in danger.
It is not clear how or why the man had swallowed the phone, but Teljaku said the patient recovered well from the procedure and is now in good health.
According to Ada Health, around 80 percent of non-edible, foreign objects that are accidentally (or intentionally) ingested pass through the body without causing any symptoms at all. Items that are small and rounded are the least likely to cause complications.