World of the Bizarre

Doctors treat woman who swallowed 55 AA and AAA batteries

By T.K. Randall
September 19, 2022

Image: Electric Batteries
Credit: John Seb Barber / CC BY 2.0 (adapted) The patient - a 66-year-old woman from Ireland - had been admitted to St. Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin after swallowing an unknown quantity of common household batteries.

According to a case report published in the Irish Medical Journal, doctors carried out X-rays of her abdomen and determined that the batteries were intact and hadn't blocked her intestines.

Initially, they attempted to wait it out and see if the woman would pass the batteries naturally, but after a week of waiting and observation, only five had presented themselves.

As she continued to be monitored over the next few weeks, it became increasingly clear that the batteries were not going to come out on their own and she had also begun to experience abdominal pain as a result of her predicament.When doctors ultimately took the decision to perform surgery, they discovered that her stomach had become stretched and distended due to the weight of the batteries.

Fortunately, however, they were able to remove them all without further incident.

The woman went on to make an "uneventful" recovery.

"To the best of our knowledge, this case represents the highest reported number of batteries ingested at a single point in time," the doctors wrote in their report.

Source: Science Alert

Tags: Batteries, Surgery