Charged Attempt at Pleasure Fails: Batteries Man Shoved Up His Penis Get Stuck, Leading to Necrosis

A septuagenarian Australian man needed urgent urethra surgery after he jammed three button-style batteries into his penis. The 73-year-old man told doctors when he arrived at the hospital that he was fuelling his own “sexual gratification” by intentionally shoving batteries into his penis. This led to a case of urethral necrosis.

“To the best of our understanding, this is the first reported case of urethral necrosis with button battery insertion,” the doctors who operated on him wrote in the March edition of Urology Case Reports. Urethral necrosis is the death of tissue in the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder out of the body.

The doctors noted their observations in the study and noted that the patient reportedly inserted batteries several times before without them getting stuck inside. The man earlier also endured shockwave therapy on his penis as he suffered from erectile dysfunction for three years.

The man waited for 24 hours to seek medical attention and the doctors moved quickly to remove the foreign objects as the corrosiveness of the batteries can cause necrosis in just two hours. They also hoped that the man does not contract the rare but lethal infection of Fournier’s gangrene.

Using forceps, the surgeons were finally able to get out the little batteries from the man’s penis. “All extracted batteries were coated with black tar-like material,” the study said.

Ten days later, the man returned to the hospital and complained that he noticed swelling and icky discharge. The doctors then decided to operate again.

“An incision was made to the penile skin (and) a large amount (of fluids) leaked out,” the doctors noted. The doctors who were afraid that the man would develop necrosis found out that they were right about their concern as the man developed an “extensive degree of necrosis”. The doctors also removed part of his urethra.

In males, the urethra is a tube that runs through the penis, allowing urine to exit the body from the bladder. “Given the complexity of his injury, it was deemed that formal penile urethral reconstruction would likely require a 3-stage repair,” the researchers said, describing the complex, six-month procedure of mucous membrane grafts.

They then assessed the extremely damaged penis and decided “the best option would be for no further penile reconstruction”.

(with inputs from the New York Post)