A prisoner swallowed a mobile phone to escape a cell inspection – and had to have it surgically removed from his intestines. The inmate gulped it down when guards arrived to search his cell at the Santo Andre Detention Centre in Sao Paulo.
It was nearly two weeks, before he complained of stomach pains and was taken to hospital. Doctors cut through his abdominal wall to remove the four-inch long phone. The incident is believed to be the first known case of mobile phone ingestion where the device has made it past the stomach.
In 2013, another Brazilian, Adriana Andrade, who was cheating on her boyfriend, swallowed her mobile phone whole to prevent him seeing her text messages. She was rushed to hospital and had the phone removed from her stomach after collapsing hours later.
In May last year a 29-year-old inmate with mental health issues in Dublin needed emergency surgery after swallowing a mobile phone which became lodged in his stomach. At the time the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports reported that the only other known case of mobile phone ingestion was “that of a 35-year old intoxicated male.
“A few other anecdotal reports of mobile phones lodged in the stomach exist in non-scientific literature.”