We hope that someone will ask Dan Meyer and Brian Witcombe, Ig Nobel medicine prize-winning co-authors of the study “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects“, for their take on this case report newly published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
“Unexpected Swallowing of a Knife,” Aida Venado, and Sarah Prebil, N Engl J Med 2012; 367:451, August 2, 2012. The authors report:
“A 30-year-old woman with a history of bulimia presented to the emergency department after swallowing a knife. She inserted the knife into the posterior oropharynx to demonstrate to her companions that she no longer had a gag reflex. When she unexpectedly laughed, the knife migrated into her esophagus, causing chest discomfort and hematemesis. Anteroposterior chest and abdominal radiographs (Panels A and B) revealed a knife within the distal esophagus and proximal stomach,… Her husband later disclosed that 4 years earlier she had swallowed a knife that required surgical removal with exploratory laparotomy.”
(Thanks to Maggie Fox, and to NBC News, for bringing this to our attention.)
BONUS: Video of Meyer and Witcombe’s Ig Nobel acceptance speech, at the 2007 ceremony: