54-year-old Ma Van Nhat couldn’t understand what was causing him so much stomach pain. It had started out of the blue and persisted, refusing to go away, even though he had no other telling symptoms.
On December 27, Nhat finally went to the hospital to seek advice from his doctor.
At first, the doctor came to the same conclusion that Nhat had arrived at himself – stomach pain.
But because of the pain’s persistence, Nhat’s doctor agreed to run an X-ray on Nhat’s abdomen, just to make sure nothing was wrong.
That was when they discovered a pair of six-inch-long, broken scissors stuck inside Nhat’s body, right beside his colon.
Nhat had no idea that they were there. In the past, he had, at worst, been prescribed some ulcer medication, but the pain had never gotten to be serious enough for him to get it more thoroughly checked until now.
After consulting with Nhat, his doctor, Dr. Trinh Thi Luong determined that the scissors must have been inside Nhat’s body for the past 18 years.
The only time the surgical tools could have fallen into Nhat’s stomach was during a surgery he had in 1998 after a traffic accident. They had been residing inside his body since then, perhaps when a doctor accidentally knocked the tool into Nhat’s body and failed to remove it.
Dr. Luong is now determined to find the doctor who may have left the scissors in Nhat’s body. “Even if they are already retired, we will still inform them,” Dr. Luong said, “this is a lesson to all doctors.”
Thankfully, Nhat is now recovering well and the scissors have been permanently removed from his body.
You can watch a news clip about Nhat here:
