Including defuse squad
“Stumbled”: Briton gets tank shell from World War II removed from Po
© Jens Wolf // Picture Alliance
A Briton came to the hospital with an unusual injury: a grenade shell from the Second World War was stuck in his anus. Even the disarming squad had to move in.
It was an unusual mission for the bomb disposal experts of the British Army’s 11th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment. Instead of going to a construction site, they were called to the hospital on Thursday. The risk of explosion did not come from an explosive device discovered during work, as is usually the case. It was in the bottom of a patient.
A 57-year-old was admitted to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital with an anti-tank shell in his anus. The military fan found the grenade case 17 centimeters long and 6 centimeters in diameter while cleaning up and then “stumbled on”, he told the doctors, according to a report by the “Sun”. Not a pleasant experience: “He was in a lot of pain,” a source told the newspaper.
Dangerous cargo
The police confirmed the incident to the “Sun”. Accordingly, an operation was carried out because of “a patient with ammunition in his rectum”. When the police arrived at the hospital, the foreign body had already been removed. But because there was still a risk of explosion, the army’s defusing service was called.
The ammunition was a 57-millimeter shell from World War II, which was generally used as an anti-tank projectile. Fortunately, the bullet turned out to be harmless in retrospect: instead of explosives, the grenade contained a metal core. “It was a heavy, pointed lump of lead that was supposed to break through armored walls”; an expert told the newspaper. “So there was no danger to human life. At least not from other people.”
The patient has meanwhile left the hospital in silence and a full recovery is expected, according to the doctors. It is not uncommon for people to come to the emergency room with various objects introduced, not only in Great Britain. “This is emergency rooms sad everyday life,” said doctor Carol Cooper of the “Sun”. “But I’ve never heard that a defuse squad has to come because of this.”
Source: The Sun