Two pieces of bangles, one gold ring, two each of safety pins and hair pins, a ear ring, one stove pin, a rubber band -- altogether, 10 such items swallowed by a 19-year-old  mentally challenged girl were taken out from her stomach at a hospital here.
Addressing reporters on Saturday, Dr Jakkaraddi of the Gastro-Enterology Department of the B M Patil Medical College Hospital, said the girl had been admitted to the hospital with severe stomach ache. Initially, her parents had not taken her complaint seriously but when she got noticeably restless, they took her to a local doctor, who directed them to the hospital.
Indigestible
Dr Jakkaraddi said X-rays had revealed presence of some indigestible material like safety pins, so he decided to do endoscopy, a procedure that lasted one and a half hours.  All the items were taken out without surgery.
Asked how she could have consumed such sharp materials without hurting the oesophagus or the intestines, Dr Jakkaraddi said that the patient must have taken them with some liquid or food material, thus ‘blunting’ the sharp-edged items from damaging the entrails or other inner organs.
There were no complications during the procedure or afterwards and the patient was stated to be all right. Dr Jakkaraddi said that the whole procedure demanded great patience and it was with the help of a ‘rat-tooth forceps’ attached to the catheter that each of the items was carefully taken out. He refused to reveal the identity as the patient’s parents’ had requested him not to.