A 35-year-old gentleman showed up at Dong Hoi, Vietnam’s Cuba Friendship Hospital complaining of terrible headaches. An MRI scan revealed that the fellow was suffering from pneumocephalus, the presence of air in the brain due to a tear in the tissue. The condition is usually caused by a skull fracture or trauma to the face. In this case, the attending physician, Dr. Nguyen Van Man, determined that his patient’s pneumocephalus was the result of a pair of chopsticks that had been pushed up his nose and entered the cranial cavity.
According to Yahoo! News, “The unnamed patient recalled being involved in a fight five months earlier when he was drinking. Although his memory was hazy, he vaguely remembered being stabbed in the face, possibly with the chopsticks. But when he visited the hospital after the altercation, medical professionals found no chopsticks or irregularities in his nose. Regardless, the patient suspected that the utensils were lodged in his nose during the fight and had remained undiscovered in his skull.”
The doctors used endoscopic surgery to retrieve the chopsticks and fix the tear in his head. The man is apparently in stable condition.
