Doctors in Singapore were shocked to discover an octopus lodged in a man’s esophagus while performing a gastrointestinal exam.
Doctors Flabbergasted After Finding Octopus In Throat
The unnamed Singaporean man first realized something was wrong when he started vomiting following a meal that included a raw octopus.
When he realized he also had trouble swallowing, the man panicked and quickly visited the Tan Tock Seng Hospital emergency room.
Doctors there quickly conducted a CT scan, which revealed a super-dense mass in the man’s esophagus.
They weren’t sure what it was without conducting an invasive procedure called esophagogastroduodenoscopy, which involves inserting a small, flexible tube with a camera at its end down the person’s throat.
That’s how they discovered that the man had a whole octopus stuck in his throat.
Octopus Lodged In His Throat
The doctors performing the gastrointestinal examination were surprised as they discovered the Alien-like cephalopod stuck in the passage between the man’s esophagus and stomach.
Images from the endoscope camera were recently shared by the American Gastrointestinal Association (AGA) Institute, and show the eight-tentacled critter stuck in the man’s esophagus, preventing him from swallowing.
At first, doctors tried the “push technique,” which usually proved very successful, However the octopus was fighting, so applying too much pressure risked rupturing the esophagus.
Doctors Finally Remove The Octopus
They tried getting the endoscope past the octopus into the stomach and then retroflexing it. They then had to use forceps to grab the sea creature and pull it out of the esophagus.
It’s unclear why the man swallowed the octopus whole, but, luckily, he recovered very well after the gastrointestinal procedure and was discharged after two days.
Approximately six people die a year from eating san-nakji, the live octopus dish that’s a delicacy in South Korea.
Octopuses glue their tentacles to people’s throats as they are swallowed, cutting off the passage of air completely.
In 2016, a 2-year-old boy in Wichita, Kansas, had to be hospitalized after getting an octopus lodged in his throat during an apparent sushi session gone awry.
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