Doctors in India said a man is lucky to be alive after he had 140 coins, 150 needles and nuts and bolts removed from his stomach, according to Caters New Agency.
Rajpal Singh, a farmer from India's western Punjab state, recently went to a hospital complaining of stomach pains.
Doctors performed an endoscopy, where a thin tube with a camera is inserted down the throat, and discovered the source of Singh's pain- hundreds of coins, needles, nuts, bolts and batteries lodged in the 34-year-old's stomach.
A team of six surgeons were able to extract most of the foreign objects after a grueling nine-hour surgery.
"Doctors have told me those sharp needles would have punctured my intestine and I would have eventually died. I feel much more relaxed now," Singh told Caters News Agency.
Singh explained how he swallowed the metal objects over the course of three years.
"I used to gulp down coins and metals with fruit juice or milk. Due to family problems I had slipped into depression and got hooked onto this weird habit," Singh said.
"I am never going to do this again," he added.
But the patient is not out of the woods yet.
"Though we have managed to remove most of it there are still sharp needles and coins in his stomach," Dr. Gandeep Goyal, who led the team of surgeons that operated on Singh, told Caters News Agency.
Singh will have the rest of the objects removed in a few days after he's had a chance to recover, Goyal said.
