2003 At-Risk Survivor

The stupidity displayed by the participants in the following tales stops short of the ultimate Darwin Awards sacrifice. Nevertheless, we salute the spirit and innovation of their misadventures.

A Medical First at Oktoberfest 2003 At-Risk Survivor Confirmed True by Darwin (September 2002, Germany) Three doctors from a Munich clinic published the following account in a highly respected medical journal. The man in question disqualified himself from a true Darwin Award by being smart enough to go to a hospital and admit what he'd done. The report is quoted directly from the journal, with the addition of bracketed "translations" that clarify the medical jargon. "A 31-year-old man was admitted to the emergency unit with severe abdominal pain and vomiting for two hours. [He'd been sober enough to notice a problem for the last two hours.] An abdominal radiograph disclosed intestinal obstruction, and a small bowel follow-through study revealed a filling defect in the right-side jejunum. [His gut was backed-up because something was stuck in it]. Persistent exploration of the patient's history [he *really* didn't want to talk about it] disclosed a visit to the Munich Octoberfest the night before, during which the patient had ingested a condom filled with beer. [No, we don't know why, either]. "Upper endoscopy was unsuccessful in removing the condom. [We couldn't budge it.] Because the condom was localized close to the abdominal wall, it was finally punctated with a long needle under CT control. [We stuck a really big needle in it, and it burst.] Forty milliliters of a yellow clear liquid [we can't say in print that it was beer, because we were laughing so hard we didn't think to send it to the lab] were drawn off when the condom slid forward spontaneously. The next morning, the condom was identified in the patient's stool [a high-quality, leakage-resistant condom, showing that the man was at least attempting to nullify his influence on the gene pool,] and the patient was discharged in good condition." The authors note, "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on intestinal obstruction caused by ingestion of a condom filled with an alcoholic beverage, and its successful transcutaneous treatment. [Hey, we always wanted to be the first doctors to do *something*!]" DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2012 Submitted by: T.G. Shaw Reference: American Journal of Gastroenterology, February 2003; 98:512, with "translations" by T.G. Shaw. Share

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