‘Dagger of the mind’ is about a false creation of an imagined situation and the figure of speech came literally true in the case of this man who wantedly swallowed ‘daggers’ or to put it simply – knives, because he thought it was tasty!
Doctors of a hospital in Punjab was stunned to find out that there were 40 metal knives in the man’s stomach who approached them complaining of severe abdomen pain.
Reportedly, this 42-year-old man used to feel an ‘irresistible’ urge to swallow knives.
Image courtesy: DINESH DUBEY / BARCROFT
“He had a wild urge to consume metal. Even for us, the experienced surgeons, it was frightening. 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,” CNN quoted a doctor who treated the man.
Image courtesy: DINESH DUBEY / BARCROFT
Doctors identified presence of knives in his stomach after analyzing X-Ray of his abdomen. They found the knives in both folded and unfolded states.
“I don’t know why I used to swallow knives, I just enjoyed its taste and I was addicted … how people get addicted to alcohol and other things, my situation was similar,” the man was quoted by CNN.
According to reports, it took two days for the surgeons to come up with a surgery plan to remove the knives from his body. Also, it took them “five” hours to remove metal deposits from his stomach.
The doctors suggested that he could have been suffering from a rare medical condition called ‘Pica’ which is characterized by an appetite for non-nutritive substances like hair, nails, paper, ice, lead etc.
