Health professionals at a hospital China They discovered that a patient had more than 30 years with a lighter lodged inside his bodyaccording to national media.
The event occurred in November 2025 in Chengduthe capital of the province of Sichuanlocated in the southwest of the Asian country, according to information disclosed by the Chinese newspaper Xinmin Evening News.
Then, according to the local newspaper Red Star Newsa man of 67 yearsa native of the area, approached the Chengfei Hospital health center because he had long begun to feel severe abdominal pain and constant bloating.
As a result of this situation, he underwent a series of clinical studies. Soon, according to the same newspaper, the doctors observed through an endoscopy that there was a rectangular object seven centimeters long «covered in black matter» in the digestive system of the patient.
This foreign body—this is what elements from outside that do not belong to the human body are called— it was a lighter.
The 67-year-old patient was admitted to the hospital. Photo: video capture/Chengdu Municipal People’s Government Information Office via Douyin.Based on the images generated by the camera of the endoscope, specialists suspected that the object could be a lighter.
When the patient woke up after the endoscopy, the doctors began to ask him about if he had any notion of the object found in his digestive system.
What the patient said about the object
According to Xinmin Evening News, In response to these questions, the 67-year-old man remembered that one night, decades ago, had swallowed a lighter while he was drunk.
A lighter three inches long. Photo: video capture/Chengdu Municipal People’s Government Information Office via Douyin.«It was probably in the summer of 1991 or 1992, when I was having a few drinks with some friends,» he said, quoted by the newspaper.
Apparently, during that night, He made a dangerous and absurd challenge with one of his friends: both agreed that each of the two I would swallow a lighteraccording to his story.
«I told him: ‘If you dare to swallow it, I will dare too‘», narrated the man, who finally ingested the objectjust like his friend.
As he said, at that time he thought that eventually would expel the object through their feces. As time went by, he forgot about it and He never thought about it again..
A medical team worker, during one of the endoscopies. Photo: video capture/Chengdu Municipal People’s Government Information Office via Douyin.Over the past 30 years, he said, did not suffer any complications significant stomach ache, apart from some specific pains that dissipated quickly. The man, according to his explanation, never suspected the presence of the lighter.
After hearing the story, the doctors determined that it was necessary remove the foreign body as soon as possible.
How the foreign body was removed
At first, according to a hospital spokesperson, the team of professionals tried to extract the object with the forceps —forceps— of the endoscope. However, they couldn’t hold him.
«The surface of the foreign body was very smooth and the clamps were slipping no matter how we tried to grab it. There was no way to hold him, so we had to give up,» said the representative of the health center, quoted by the news portal Need To Know.
Therefore, doctors turned to another method. According to local media, the team of specialists introduced a condom into the patient’s body with the endoscope to «catch«the lighter, placing it inside the prophylactic element. In that way, they could remove the foreign body without slipping on the way.
The team of health professionals removed the lighter with the help of a condom. Photo: video capture/Chengdu Municipal People’s Government Information Office via Douyin.This particular procedure, which lasted about 20 minuteswas successful. According to Red Star Newson November 22, the patient reported that he was recovering well from the operation and he had to take care of himself with food.
On the other hand, according to the same newspaper, despite having been in the digestive system for so long, the lighter remained intact and even still had residual flammable liquid inside.
The patient was a lucky one: during the last decades, the foreign body could have caused his deathas happened in other cases. From the hospital they publicly asked that avoid carrying out these extremely dangerous activities —swallowing objects—that put life at risk.
