This bowel-saving surgery is nothing to sneeze at.
Surgeons have successfully placed part of a Florida man’s colon back into his body after it fell out following a forceful sneeze.
The 63-year-old was enjoying breakfast at a diner with his wife when the unusual incident occurred. His miraculous medical recovery is documented in a new article published by the American Journal of Medical Case Reports.
Prior to the incident, the man battled prostate cancer and underwent abdominal surgery.
He had stitches removed from his abdomen on the morning that his bowel “evisceration” took place.
He was at the diner with his wife to celebrate his clean bill of health.
“During breakfast, the man sneezed forcefully, followed by coughing,” the journal article explains. “He immediately noticed a ‘wet’ sensation and pain in his lower abdomen. Looking down, he observed several loops of pink bowel protruding from his recent surgical site.”
The man covered the exposed intestines with his shirt while his wife called for an ambulance.
Paramedics who arrived at the scene noted an “approximately 3-inch vertical laceration with large amounts of bowel” poking through it.
Thankfully, the Floridian reported little blood loss and he was rushed to a nearby medical facility.
Three urologic surgeons carefully reduced the eviscerated bowel back into the abdominal cavity and also “inspected the full length of the small bowel and noted no evidence of injury.”
They closed the abdomen with a series of figure-of-eight stitches — one of the strongest types of closures — to make sure it did not pop back open once more.
The lucky man was eventually weaned off of pain medications and placed back on a normal diet before being released from the hospital following a six-day stay.
While such incidents are incredibly rare, it’s advised that paramedics be educated on how to treat an exposed bowel, with the journal’s authors saying they should “control visible bleeding, address gross contamination by rinsing the bowel with sterile saline or sterile water, and cover the exposed bowel with a moist, sterile dressing.”
