After an emergency gastroscopy, doctors spotted a cube-shaped object in the man’s stomach, its structure distorted by stomach acid.
However, despite several attempts, the object could not be removed due to its smooth and slippery surface.
The medical team decided to postpone the extraction so they could gather more information about the object.
When the man was asked if he had any idea what this rectangular item in his stomach could be, he recalled an incident from the early 1990s when, under the influence of alcohol and on a dare with friends, he had swallowed a plastic lighter.
He had never told his family about it and believed that the lighter had exited his body long ago.
At that moment, he remembered the several unexplained episodes of stomach pain he had experienced over the years, though it had never crossed his mind that the cause might be the lighter he had swallowed three decades earlier.
Once the object was confirmed to be a lighter, the team considered a technique for its removal, encircled it, and successfully pulled it out.
Although the lighter’s exterior was damaged by acid, it still contained gas - and to the doctors’ astonishment, it was still functional.
