Florida man sneezes his intestines out of his body at restaurant

A Florida man eating in a diner with his wife recently sneezed so forcefully it caused parts of his intestines to exit his body through a surgical wound, according to researchers.

The case, published in a May 2024 edition of the American Journal of Medical Case Reports, describes the unnamed man as a 63-year-old with a history of prostate cancer.

During treatments for a post-cancer recurrence, he encountered various health complications, and the man underwent a cystectomy, a procedure to remove his urinary bladder, 15 days before the diner incident, leaving him with a healing surgical wound on his abdomen.

The morning of the sneeze, the man’s doctors reported that he was healing well and could remove staples binding the wound together.

He and his wife went out to breakfast at the diner to celebrate.

"During breakfast, the man sneezed forcefully, followed by coughing. He immediately noticed a ‘wet’ sensation and pain in his lower abdomen. Looking down, he observed several loops of pink bowel protruding from his recent surgical site," the researchers write.

Stunned, the man covered the protuberance with his shirt and considered driving himself to a hospital, but feared changing positions would make the wound worse and called an ambulance instead.

Arriving paramedics covered the wound with a pad and gave the man painkillers, rushing him to a nearby hopsital.

There, measurements showed his vital signs within normal limits.

"Three Urologic surgeons carefully reduced the eviscerated bowel back into the abdominal cavity,” the cast study continues. “They inspected the full length of the small bowel and noted no evidence of injury.”

The journal notes that the case is an important one because it fills in gaps in the literature about dehisence, the bursting of wounds.

"While wound dehiscence is a well-known complication, this case is important because evisceration through the abdominal surgical site after cystectomy is poorly described in the medical literature,” the article concludes.