This is pretty incredible, but apparently it’s no joke:
“I know I didn’t chow down on a spoon!” declared John Manley, who recently discovered that an eating utensil was the source of his two years of ill health, coughing, vomiting and pain.
The Wilmington, North Carolina, resident had surgery last week to remove part of a plastic spoon from his lung. And it wasn’t just any old plastic spoon; it came from the fast-food chain Wendy’s, with the restaurant logo clearly visible on the handle.
“It must have been in the food or drink,” Manley told CNN affiliate WECT.
His doctor found the spoon after looking into his lungs with an endoscope, a medical instrument with a long, thin tube containing a light and a video camera.
So here’s my question: how the heck do you get a spoon from a fast-food restaurant lodged in your lung?
This story gives new meaning to the phrase, “eating so fast you inhaled your food.”
He was suffering for TWO years before the doctors finally found the source of his problems. Doesn’t plastic show up on x-rays? You’d think if he’s coughing, vomiting, and in pain one of the first things they’d do would be give him a chest x-ray. Unless…he didn’t go to the doctor and just suffered through it. Poor guy!
Zach…I can’t imagine any other way this plastic spoon could have gotten lodge in his lung without him inhaling at the time in was going down. It is an odd story. It reminds me of dry drowning in children.
Not sure if plastic shows up on an X-ray, but it’s crazy to me that it took two years for doctors to figure out the problem.
Yeah…I know it…this story was so odd I had to read a few more articles on it and I guess he was having pneumonia and other respiratory problems. I’m not sure but I think they might have known earlier there was something in his lung because the doctors were talking about removing his lung…but he wouldn’t allow the doctors to do that. I don’t know…maybe lungs can’t be operated on?? Thankfully…he was able to find a doctor who was able to remove the object (spoon) and not his lung. He said he thinks he inhaled the plastic spoon while “gulping his soda”. He said he’s a “gulper”…LOL.
I just can’t figure out how the guy didn’t realize he was swallowing a spoon.
I think a photo of the man might produce an answer. Perhaps big as they come and eats with two hands??? What else could have you inhale a spoon? Next on channel 2 man sues Wendys for having inhalable utensils.
Perhaps we need a warning on the spoon?
I’m still having a hard time wrapping my brain around this. No matter how big the man may be, how did he not realize he had inhaled a spoon?!?
I don’t want to put visions in your head that will be hard to remove but have you ever seen a 400-600 lb person eat?