Refused to Become Food: Doctors Find Octopus Stuck in Patient’s Throat

(Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images) A Singaporean man was taken to hospital after he ate an octopus whole.

Doctors at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore were surprised when they discovered a whole octopus found its way down a 55-year-old man's throat.

The unnamed man was admitted to hospital after he complained of having difficulty swallowing. He told hospital staff he ate a meal that included an octopus dish and started vomiting immediately after he ate it.

Health experts discovered the octopus was stuck 5cm from the gastroesophageal junction, an area where the esophagus and the stomach meet when they scanned the patient's throat.

Doctors were left with no choice but to carry out a computed tomography scan on the patient. After several attempts to extract the octopus from the man's throat, they eventually maneuvered the endoscope past the octopus and retroflexed it, allowing doctors to extract the creature.

The patient quickly recovered from the procedure and was discharged two days later.

Food Swallowing Issues Due to Octopus

The medical team at Tan Tock Seng Hospital which was involved with the procedure in 2018 said food blockages were one of the most common problems they encountered in their work.

They explained that food bolus issues would pass spontaneously in 80% to 90% of cases, while endoscopic management would be needed in between 10% and 20% of cases, and only less than 1% of the cases require surgery.

"The 'push technique' is the primary method recommended with high success rates, however applying excessive force can cause esophageal perforation," they added.

The Singaporean man's case was not the first time an octopus lodged inside a person's throat.

In 2016, a two-year-old boy in Wichita, Kansas was taken to hospital after allegedly eating a live creature in a sushi restaurant, the New York Post reported.

Meanwhile, an average of six people die annually from eating Sannakji, a Korean live octopus delicacy. Fatalities in eating a live octopus are generally caused when the suckers stick to the sides of the diner's throat, causing the victim to asphyxiate. The risk was also heightened when the tentacles were cut longer or the animal was eaten whole as part of a soju-inspired stint.