Authorities evacuated a French hospital Saturday after a 24-year-old man entered with an eight-inch-long shell up his rear end, according to multiple reports.
The unidentified man arrived at the Rangueil Accident and Emergency unit in the southwestern French city of Toulouse, where he underwent emergency surgery after complaining of “extreme discomfort,” the Daily Mail reported. The 37mm shell dating from World War I was removed and later determined to be demilitarized, according to La Depeche.
“The surgeons extracted the object before alerting the police, given its nature,” a source close to the investigation told the French newspaper. The man is not likely to face charges since the shell was not live.
“We will not prosecute him, as there is no criminal offense. The ammunition was demilitarized,” Toulouse public prosecutor David Charmatz told La Depeche. How the ordinance got inside the man’s anus is not known as of this writing.
The shell was one of millions fired on the Western Front during World War I, which still turn up in what is described as the “Iron Harvest,” where they are uncovered during farming, construction and other activities that disturb land, the New York Post reported.
Discoveries of unexploded ordnance are not uncommon, with a 160-year-old shell being discovered near Little Round Top, the scene of one of the crucial moments during the decisive Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War, in 2023. United States Army explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel later rendered the shell safe, but did allow the National Park Service to document the find.
A similar shell was discovered at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, where the Civil War began, in 1997, was later defused, and is now on display at the historical site.
An unexploded bomb from World War II detonated in Munich, injuring four people, in December 2021. Another unexploded bomb was located under a parking lot at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2017.
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