Man Had To Remove 70cm Of His Small Intestine After Eating Overnight Watermelon


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Last Updated on 2023-01-27 , 1:38 pm

Like a wise old man once told me, the greatest inventions in Singapore has to do with cooling things down.

Like aircon, refrigerator and the 20 cents ice pop we used to have in primary school.

And you’ve got to admit, the fridge is one thing we can’t do without in our lives. Need cold drinks to cool yourself down in Singapore? Throw a pack of drinks into the fridge for a few hours and enjoy.

Or you throw leftovers into the fridge and eat them the next day.

Like my young millennial writer would always say, the fridge is the dopest thing ever after MaplestoryM.

But here’s one thing that people normally forget: the fridge isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.

Like this man.

Man Suffers Pain After Eating Overnight Watermelon

Okay, watermelon and fridge sound pretty safe.

But, unfortunately for this man named Zhang in Xiangxiang city, Hunan, China, his twosome adventure with a watermelon took an unexpected twist.

According to Apple Daily, this seventy-year-old man ate a watermelon, that he placed in the fridge a day before, on 25 Jul 2018.

Two hours after his fruit snack, Zhang felt excruciating pain in his stomach. Unable to take the pain, he visited the local hospital the next morning.

He was referred to Changsha Hospital for further treatment on 28 Jul 2018.

After their examination, the doctors suspected that his intestines had an obstruction or necrotised (read: died)

They proceeded to perform a laparotomy on him found that he is suffering from necrotising enterocolitis, a condition where part of his intestines died.

An operation was performed on Zhang where the surgeons found 70 cm of his small intestine damaged, and removed the damaged parts.


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Thankfully, the operation went well and Zhang is now recovering.

How Could This Have Happened?

According to a doctor at Changsha Hospital, storing food in the fridge isn’t enough to ward off incidents like this.

You’ll have to store them in the correct manner too.

Sometimes, even with a cling wrap, bacteria will still grow.

So, the best rule of the thumb is not to leave food in the fridge for too long. No matter whether you have cling wrap or not.


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Moral of the Story: Part Two

This is pretty common-sense but I thought I’d bring it up because, more often than not, Singaporeans tend not to see the doctor for “small issues” like this.

Food poisoning ah, neh mind, I’ll just drink more water and wait for diarrhoea to hit.

After all, that’s our body’s natural remedy to purge poisonous substances from our bodies, right?

Nope.

Because, sometimes, things might’ve been worse than what you’ve thought.

Like for Zhang, it took four days for the doctor to finally remove parts of his small intestine, and 70 cm had to be removed.


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But if he had taken longer, more of his intestine would’ve died and rotted away.

So the next time you suspect something’s wrong about your body, you might want to visit a doctor for a checkup anyway.

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Featured Image: Bigc Studio / Shutterstock.com