Doctor removes 55 batteries from woman’s stomach and gut-highest number ever reported

Ireland: Doctors in Ireland removed 55 AA and AAA batteries from a woman’s stomach and the gut-the highest number ever reported—after she swallowed them in a supposed episode of deliberate self-harm.

The 66-year-old woman was being treated at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin following ingestion of an initially “unknown number” of cylindrical batteries, many of which were later found to be stuck in her abdomen through an X-ray, according to a case report published Thursday in the Irish Medical Journal. Initially, doctors waited for the patient to naturally pass the batteries through her body but subsequent scans showed most were still weighing down on her stomach as she could only release five AA batteries in the first week.

Owing to the weight of the batteries, the distended stomach ended up hanging over the pubic bone which necessitated a surgical removal of the foreign objects. The surgeons then cut a small hole through her stomach and removed 46 batteries – including both AA and AAA – from the organ. The remaining four batteries, stuck in the colon, were “milked” into her rectum and removed through the anus, according to Live science — bringing the total number of swallowed batteries to 55.

“To the best of our knowledge, this case represents the highest reported number of batteries ingested at a single point in time,” the doctors said. Surprisingly, none of these electrochemical devices appeared to block her gastrointestinal (GI) and no structural damage to her body was reported either. Most documented cases of battery ingestion involve a child swallowing small, button-style batteries. “The deliberate ingestion of multiple large AA batteries as a form of deliberate self-harm is an unusual presentation,” the doctors noted.