Doctors remove swallowed coin from patient’s lung

Doctors in Germany have found a coin in the lung of a patient who has had severe coughing attacks for months, according to the report of St. Barbara clinic in Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia).

The man accidentally swallowed the one-cent coin in January during a game of darts but forgot about the incident afterward.

As time went on, however, he had more and more lung complaints, which resulted in pneumonia. When he consulted a doctor, a coin turned out to be the cause of the problems. Now that the object has been removed, the man feels perfectly healthy again, the hospital says.

In a communication from the hospital, the man explains how it could have happened that he swallowed a coin during a game of darts.

“My buddy patted my back, which gave me a bit of a shock,” he says. “That caused the coin I was playing with in my mouth to burst in. What goes in comes out again, I thought. Furthermore, I did not think about it. But when I started to cough violently, I went to see a doctor.”

The man will keep the coin in question, which did not come out of the intervention intact, as a good luck charm in his wallet.