An 80-year-old man presented himself to the emergency room in Toulon last weekend. He had a World War I shell stuck in his anus.
- According to Nice-Matin, only the gynecology and maternity services of Sainte-Musse hospital were able to operate normally on Saturday evening.
- 90% of peritonitis is caused by the perforation of an organ present in the abdomen.
All in all, last Saturday at the Sainte-Musse emergency room in Toulon in the Var. As reported Nice morning, an octogenarian showed up with a shell stuck in his anus. “An apple, a mango or even a can of shaving foam… We are used to finding unusual objects inserted where they should not be. But a shell? Never !“, explains one of the hospital staff on a daily basis.
Shell in the anus: an evacuation from the hospital
Beyond the unusual nature of the situation, this required an emergency reorganization of services. Indeed, the management had to set up a bomb alert, and move certain people hospitalized until the demining services could intervene. Some of the patients were evacuated to other areas of the hospital, with the help of firefighters and security. “The Samu has set up a tent outside the establishment so as not to put people being treated in intensive care at risk, just above the emergency room.highlighted Nice morning. For a few hours, new patients were redirected to other hospitals in the area.
Visceral surgery to remove the shell from the anus
“We then had to treat our atypical patient, who immediately ensured that the shell was demilitarized“, adds the member of the hospital staff, quoted by the newspaper. The deminers reassured the teams of the hospital: it was about a shell of collection of the First world war, offered to the Poilus. If the risk of explosion could be ruled out, the surgeons had to intervene to remove the object from the anus of the octogenarian.It rarely comes out where it came in”, specifies a source in the daily Nice. To remove the shell, it was necessary to perform visceral surgery, the surgeons took it out through the abdomen. They were able to see its size: twenty centimeters long, and between five and six centimeters in diameter. Since then, the man has been in good health, and if he will probably not forget this evening, this is also the case for the hospital teams. Monday morning, they were thanked by management for their involvement.
Objects in the anus: what are the risks?
In an article by Slate, proctologist Franck Devulder, recalls that removing an object stuck in the anus can be a difficult task. “When the object has disappeared, we use endoscopic techniques to find ithe says. Or surgery, depending on the nature of the object. A stemmed glass, for example, is extremely tricky to remove..”
Health professionals must take all their precautions to limit the risk of peritonitis, an inflammation of the peritoneum, the membrane that covers the organs present in the abdomen. “Often what people don’t know is that there is like a bend between the rectum and the colon.explains Vanessa Forgues, sexologist and psychotherapist, to Slate. It forms an angle. This is why if you force, you risk perforating the wall at this elbow. And there, feces end up in the abdomen.” The presence of these materials in the abdomen is the cause of the infection, but it can occur even before the removal attempt. By inserting an object “Nope–adapted” in the anus, it can damage or even perforate the rectum, which puts the person at high risk of peritonitis. This infection is considered an emergency by health professionals because it is life-threatening.
A grandpa comes to the emergency room with a shell in the anus in Toulon: the hospital partially evacuated https://t.co/CTUl5QdWjf pic.twitter.com/w5dmgv2yqq
– Nice-Matin (@Nice_Matin) December 19, 2022