You wouldn’t ever want to witness something like this at a restaurant with food in your mouth. A 63-year-old sneezed his gut out while dining with his wife at a restaurant in Florida and even thought about driving himself to the hospital.
The accident is so rare that it made it to a case report, which describes the events of the unfortunate night, when a man sat at the dining table holding his intestine, waiting for the ambulance.
Man sneezes his intestine out during dinner
The unnamed Florida man had undergone surgery 15 days before the incident. According to the report, he had a history of prostate cancer and was recently treated for open cystectomy with bilateral uretoileal conduit diversion – a surgical procedure to remove the bladder and create a urinary diversion to allow urine to pass from the kidneys.
The surgery was successful and he was discharged home in “good condition”, the case report states. He had visited the Urology clinic in the morning on the day of the event where the overlying staples were removed as his wound appeared to have healed.
He and his wife decided to celebrate his recovery over breakfast when the unthinkable happened. Reportedly, the man sneezed “forcefully” during breakfast, followed by coughing. He soon felt a “wet” sensation and pain in his abdomen.
“Looking down, he observed several loops of pink bowel protruding from his recent surgical site. He later related that he was unsure of how to proceed, so he covered the exposed intestines with his shirt,” the report states.
He thought of driving himself to the hospital
The man initially “decided to drive himself” to the hospital, but his wife requested an ambulance, concerned about injury to the bowel.
An ambulance arrived 4 minutes later after being requested for a “laceration with exposed bowel.” Upon removing the man’s shirt, the paramedics saw a vertical laceration approximately 3 inches, with “large amounts of bowel” protruding through it. There was minimal bleeding.
The paramedic did consider reducing the exposed bowel manually but decided against it due to concerns that it may injure the bowel.
She converted the intestines with an abdominal pad moistened with saline instead and secured it in place by “wrapping gauze roll around the entire abdomen.”
The patient’s vitals were normal upon reaching the emergency room. He was given general anesthesia in the operation theater and “three Urologic surgeons carefully reduced the eviscerated bowel back into the abdominal cavity.”
He was discharged home 6 days after the emergency procedure. His diet was slowly advanced to a normal diet.
