A 73-year-old Australian man was hospitalised and needed urgent urethra surgery after jamming three button-style batteries into his penis.
The unidentified man, whose medical emergency is now the source of a medical study in March’s Urology Case Reports, had been fueling his own “sexual gratification” by intentionally shoving batteries into his penis.
In the process, three batteries got stuck.
“To the best of our understanding, this is the first reported case of urethral necrosis with button battery insertion,” the authors of the medical study wrote.
The patient had reportedly inserted batteries several times before without them getting stuck inside.
He also endured shockwave therapy on his penis — he had suffered erectile dysfunction for three years.
After the man waited 24 hours to seek medical attention, doctors moved quickly to remove the foreign objects as their corrosiveness can cause necrosis — the death of body tissue — in just two hours.
They also feared the potentially rare but lethal infection of Fournier’s gangrene.
After several unsuccessful approaches, surgeons resorted to forceps, which finally got out the batteries.
“All extracted batteries were coated with black tar-like material,” the study noted.
That wasn’t the end of it, though. Ten days later, the man returned to the hospital, complaining of swelling and icky discharge, prompting doctors to aggressively operate yet again.
“An incision was made to the penile skin,” researchers noted, adding that “a large amount” of fluids leaked out.
The doctors’ fears that the man developed an “extensive degree of necrosis” were realized — and part of his urethra had to be removed.
“Given the complexity of his injury, it was deemed that formal penile urethral reconstruction would likely require a 3-stage repair,” according to the researchers, who described the complex, six-month procedure of mucous membrane grafts.
After assessing the extremely damaged penis, ultimately doctors “decided that the best option would be for no further penile reconstruction.”
