A 68-year-old man in Chengdu, China discovered that a lighter he swallowed over three decades ago was still lodged in his stomach.
Deng, the patient, sought medical attention only after experiencing severe stomach pain. He underwent emergency gastroscopy, revealing a shiny black object that had been residing in his stomach for decades.
Doctors initially struggled to remove the lighter with a standard endoscope due to its size and resistance to acid. They carefully wrapped the lighter and extracted it gradually, a process that required advanced techniques because conventional endoscopy had a low success rate in similar cases.
Once removed, the lighter still contained gas and could function, shocking the medical team. The lighter’s casing, made of polypropylene or ABS plastic, protected it from stomach acid over 30 years.
Deng recalled swallowing the lighter at age 30 during a challenge with friends. He never told anyone outside his group and believed it had passed naturally. Occasionally, he experienced mild stomach pains that subsided until the recent severe episode prompted medical intervention.
Medical experts noted the case is extremely rare, highlighting both the human body’s resilience and the unusual circumstances that allowed the foreign object to remain intact for decades.
