A fork in the rod [medical case report]

Some persons use a fork to eat dinner. At least one person found an alternate use for the implement:

“Urethral Foreign Body,” Krishanth Naidu, Amanda Chung, and Maurice Mulcahy, International Journal of Surgery Case Reports, 2013. The authors, at the Canberra Hospital, Canberra, Australia, report:

“Lower urinary tract foreign body insertions have a low incidence. The motives for insertion of a variety of objects are difficult to comprehend. This case warrants discussion given the great management challenge faced by the oddity and infrequency with which a fork is encountered in the penile urethra…. A 70-year-old man presents to the Emergency Department with a bleeding urethral meatus following self-insertion of a fork into the urethra to achieve sexual gratification. Multiple retrieval methods were contemplated with success achieved via forceps traction and copious lubrication…

“If one reviews current literature, it is apparent that the human mind is uninhibited let alone creative. The wide array of self-inserted foreign bodies include needles, pencils, ball point pens, pen lids, garden wire, copper wire, speaker wire, safety pins, Allen keys, wire-like objects (telephone cables, rubber tubes, feeding tubes, straws, string), toothbrushes, household batteries, light bulbs, marbles, cotton tip swabs, plastic cups, thermomethers, plants and vegetables (carrot, cucumber, beans, hay, bamboo sticks, grass leaves), parts of animals (leeches, squirrel tail, snakes, bones), toys, pieces of latex gloves, blue tack, Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices (IUCD), tampons, pessaries, powders (cocaine), fluids (glue, hot wax).”

Detail from the study:

(Thanks to investigator Sharon Trudgeon, the Canberra Times, and the Daily Mail, for bringing this to our attention.)