China: Drunk man swallows 15-cm long spoon thinking it's a dream; discovers after 5 months

Shanghai: In a bizarre twist that blurs the line between nightmare and reality, a 29-year-old Chinese man named Yan discovered that his persistent stomach discomfort was caused not by indigestion but by a ceramic coffee spoon swallowed months earlier during a drunken night in Thailand.

The surreal medical drama unfolded when Yan visited Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital in June, convinced he had accidentally ingested plastic from takeaway food. What doctors uncovered instead defied belief: a 15cm long spoon wedged dangerously in his duodenum—the first section of the small intestine.

The utensil had been lying there silently for nearly half a year, at risk of piercing the intestinal wall and causing fatal internal bleeding at the slightest jolt.

It was only then that Yan’s blurred recollection from January sharpened into horrifying clarity. While heavily intoxicated in his Thai hotel room, he had tried to induce vomiting with a coffee spoon. The attempt ended disastrously when, in his stupor, the spoon slipped from his hand and was sucked into his throat before vanishing into his stomach.

A subsequent alcoholic blackout left him with only fleeting fragments of the incident. The next morning, Yan dismissed the unsettling memory as a drunken hallucination, chalking up his stomach ache to excessive vomiting and continuing life as usual after returning to Shanghai.

Incredibly, Yan kept up an active lifestyle for six months, even hitting the gym regularly, completely unaware of the ceramic intruder lurking inside him.

Doctors faced a daunting task during the spoon’s removal on June 18. The object’s slippery surface and awkward position made it almost impossible to grasp. An initial attempt with snare forceps failed, forcing Dr. Zhou Hongping, director of Zhongshan Hospital’s endoscopy centre, to improvise. Using two forceps, the team carefully nudged the spoon back into Yan’s stomach, where it could finally be secured and extracted after a tense 90-minute procedure.

Yan has since been discharged and credits sheer luck—and a routine hospital visit—for saving him from what could have become a medical tragedy.

The astonishing case comes on the heels of another headline-grabbing story: a 64-year-old Chinese man discovered a toothbrush in his body that he had accidentally swallowed as a child 52 years ago.

Online reactions to Yan’s ordeal have ranged from shock to wry amusement. “Another crazy thing one can do after getting drunk,” quipped one commenter. “It’s amazing he even went to the doctor for something unrelated,” remarked another.

For Yan, the surreal experience serves as a sobering reminder of the thin line between an alcohol-fuelled prank—and a brush with death.