A team of doctors has surgically removed around 40 knives from the stomach of an Indian man. The 42-year-old father of two had been swallowing knives since last two months.
In one of its own kind of case, the surgeons spent almost five hours on August 19, Friday to remove 40 foldable knives from the stomach of the man, according to CNN. The operation took place in Amritsar, a holy north Indian city in the state of Punjab, famous for Sikh heritage Golden Temple.
The team spent almost two days to make a complete diagnosis of the man and to devise a plan for the surgery. According to the surgeons, the man had an unbeatable and wild urge to consume metal, which seemed a bit frightening to the doctors before they finally conducted the operation.
"He had a wild urge to consume metal. Even for us, the experienced surgeons, it was frightening," Dr. Jatinder Malhotra told the publication. "We were so nervous. A small mistake could have taken the patient's life. In my 20 years of practice, I have never seen anything like it."
According to Malhotra, the team recovered several foldable knives from the stomach of the patient. The knives were as much as seven inches long when fully extended. The patient swallowed both folded and unfolded knives during a course of two months. The team removed all sought of knives from the body of the patient - folded, open, rusted and broken.
The surgeons further revealed that the man is now out of danger and is recovering well. He is expected to be discharged from the hospital soon. Meanwhile, the man has apologized to his family for his behavior and is thankful to the doctors for saving his precious life.
Despite his improved condition, the man would not get a go ahead from the discharge team until he is examined and cleared by psychiatrists as well. The reasons why he started eating knives is not clear and that is exactly what the doctors want to figure out.
The man has already confessed that he found consuming knives "addicting." The doctors suspect that it could be a rare form of a mental illness that has not been described in any medical journal as yet.
So far, the doctors have ruled out the possibility of him having Pica disorder, according to to ABC News. It is a kind of a disorder in which patients feel an urge to eat non-edible things.
The following video talks about the miracle surgery: