February 18, 2006
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Nail Coughs Up Man – Or Vice Versa?
In 1970, a bizarre gardening accident embedded a small nail deep inside Guy “Bud” Hart’s body.if (LinkCount>0){
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}More than 35 years later, the nail made an unexpected return, much to Hart’s surprise.
The
Placerville, California man was stunned earlier this month when a
coughing fit expelled the inch-long sliver of metal, completing its
decades-long trek inside the 84-year-old’s body.“I didn’t think something like that could happen,” Hart said.
The
story of Hart and his unexpected passenger began in Minnesota back in
1970. While mowing grass one day, Hart felt a slight pain in his throat
and saw a small trickle of blood.“It was like a bee sting,” Hart said. “But I didn’t think much of it.”
Hart wasn’t overly alarmed, but just hours later, the discomfort began.
“The next day, when I coughed, it was like I had a hot knife in there, cutting me,” Hart said.
His
family rushing him to the hospital with a 105-degree temperature.
There, doctors found the culprit, a small nail that had dropped down
inside Hart’s body cavity and nestled inside his ribcage.Doses
of penicillin helped Hart heal, but since removing the metal would
require major surgery and doctors suspected the nail would seal itself
off in Hart’s body, the foreign object was forgotten for years.“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Hart said.
Years later, the nail turned up again on a doctor’s x-ray, but again, the unobtrusive item was left alone.
Then,
three weeks ago, an internal camera captured an image of the nail
during a routine doctor’s office visit. But it wasn’t in Hart’s ribcage
area as he’d always thought — the object was actually in Hart’s lung.
As Hart and his doctors made plans to remove the nail once and for all,
natural physiology took over.Hart was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth last week when the 35-year partnership finally came to an end.
“I’d been having this tickle in my throat,” Hart said. “Pretty soon, I started coughing. And it plopped right out.”
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