MEDICAL BAG
India’s electricity eating “Living Light Bulb” and the man who swallowed a traffic cone
“About 80 per cent of my body is composed of electricity now”
WATTS FOR DINNER?
Naresh Kumar, 42, from Muzzafarnagar in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, claims that he is naturally insulated against high voltage electricity, and furthermore that he can draw energy directly from electricity, obviating the need for regular food to survive. One day at work he touched a live wire by mistake, but nothing happened. He decided to explore his “superpower” by grabbing even more live wires and eventually realised that he could use electricity as an alternative to traditional food. “Whenever I feel hungry and there’s no food in the house I hold naked wires and within half an hour I’m satisfied,” he said. “I eat electricity like it’s food. I can touch any electrical appliance like a television, washing machine, fridge, and an inverter with my bare hands and it doesn’t affect me. In fact it helps my energy levels. I think about 80 per cent of my body is composed of electricity now.” His house is full of live wires that let him tap into his favourite energy source whenever he likes. “There are no switches, and sometimes my children and I fear we’ll get an electric shock,” his wife said. “But because he’s
obsessed with touching naked wires they are left like this. He even uses his bare hands to switch different appliances on and off.” Videos of Naresh holding live wires in his hands or his mouth have been doing the rounds of social media, and he’s been dubbed “India’s Living Light Bulb”.
Fortean Times has reported on several cases of electrical immunity, the first being Bulgarian electrician Georgi Ivanov, who never bothered to switch off the mains when doing repairs. He had never had a shock, only a tingling sensation. In 1984 he was tested in a Sofia hospital, where it was found he could take up to 380 volts without discomfort [ FT43:4]. However, this is the first time the Gang of Fort has heard of anyone claiming to actually feed off electricity. Oddity central.lc9m ,9 Aug; D.Mail, 11 Aug 2017.
EARLY TEETH
In August, doctors in the western Indian state of Gujarat successfully extracted seven teeth from a one-month old infant. Dental surgeon Dr Meet Ramatri said that the procedure was carried out in two stages: they first extracted four teeth, and then the remaining three. The teeth were discovered a few days after the boy’s birth. “Sometimes you see tips (of the teeth) in newborns but they don’t grow for a while,” said Dr Ramatri. “In this case, the teeth were fully out.” He was obliged to remove the teeth surgically, he added, because they were not firm, and if one of them had broken off, it could have got stuck in the baby’s windpipe, which would have been fatal. He said that the baby was able to feed, but added that it was hard to say if the surgery would interfere with how the baby’s teeth would grow in the future. BBC News, 8 Sept 2017. Ella-Rose Lines was born with two perfectly formed incisors in her lower jaw. Her mother Samantha, from Rugby, Warwickshire, gave birth to Ella-Rose by cæsarean section last February. She had
started breastfeeding, but was apprehensive about being bitten. She was warned that the teeth could become a choking hazard, and to monitor them in case they became loose. D.Mail, 22 Feb 2017.
FOREIGN BODIES
After Paul Baxter, 50, a postman from Croston, Lancashire, had a cough for a year he was referred to a respiratory clinic. When scans revealed a dark mass in his chest, he feared he had a tumour. However, surgery revealed an orange police cone from a Playmobil traffic set he got for his seventh birthday. “I’ve been told I must have inhaled it for it to go into my windpipe,” he said. “If I had swallowed it, it would have gone into my stomach and out the other end.” The report on the case in the British Medical
Journal (BMJ) said because Baxter was so young when he inhaled the toy, his airway had been able to remodel and adapt to the presence of a foreign body. It was not unusual for children to ingest or inhale small toys, it said, but “a case in which the onset of symptoms occurs so long after initial aspiration is unheard of”. Baxter’s cough subsided four months after the traffic cone was removed. BBC News, D.Mail, 26 Sept; Sun, 28 Sept 2017. During a drinking game with friends in 1981, a 14-year-old youth named Wang, from Kunshan City in China’s Jiangsu province, swallowed two ballpoint pens. After suffering stomach pains 36 years later, he went to hospital where the pens were discovered; he had forgotten all about them. Dr Xu Hongwei, who operated and removed them, said Wang was very lucky. “One punctured his intestine causing a festering wound,” he said. Wang made a full recovery. The pens still worked. Metro, 9 May 2017. When Steve Davies, 50, went to see a new dentist, he was found to have a lump in his mouth. Surgeons found a 5p-sized piece of lead lodged in his face. He recalled being cut on the cheek in 1981 after a pellet from an air-gun he was firing ricocheted. “A pellet hit something and whipped me across the cheek,” said Mr Davis, 50, from Falkirk, Stirlingshire. “I was left with a lump which I thought was caused by the cut. It never hurt – it just felt like part of my mouth.” Sun, 6 May 2016. In 1965 Arthur Lampitt from Granite City, Illinois, smashed his 1963 Thunderbird into a truck. Fifty-one years later during surgery in St Louis, a 7in (18cm) indicator signal lever from that T-bird was removed from his left arm. The accident had broken Lampitt’s hip, drawing attention away from the arm, which healed. Lampitt, now aged 75, was moving concrete blocks in late 2015 when his arm began to hurt for the first time and then to swell. Dr Timothy Lang removed the lever during a 45-minute operation. Irish Examiner, 3 Jan 2016. Vietnamese doctors in Thai Nguyen Province removed a pair of scissors left lodged in a man’s abdomen for 18 years. Ma Van Nhat, 54, visited hospital after being involved in a road accident last December, and an ultrasound test showed a sharp instrument lying to the left of his stomach, which turned out to be a 6in (15cm) pair of surgical scissors nestling next to his colon. It was thought they had been left inside him during a 1998 operation following an earlier road accident. He had noticed nothing since that time apart from some recent stomach pain, which did not respond to painkillers. The surgeons who carried out the three-hour procedure note the rusty handles of the scissors had become stuck to some nearby organs. BBC News, 2 Jan 2017.
INFECTIOUS SYMPTOMS
In an apparent case of mass psychogenic illness, 16 Thai schoolgirls experienced chest tightness, palpitations and fainting while being vaccinated against human papilloma virus (HPV) at Ban Krang School in Phitsanulok’s Muang district. Nurse Jarunee Nasorn confirmed that 16 students had developed the symptoms – 11 of whom had yet to receive the vaccine. Jarunee said her team had earlier vaccinated other students without any side effects or problems. Most of the students recovered after receiving first aid, although three were taken to hospital. One of these was said to have suffered an asthma attack. The Nation (Thailand), 9 Aug 2017. Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire was evacuated after operating room staff complained of nausea due to an “unknown odour”. About 17 members of staff were affected, including some who experienced dizziness. The incident began at about 9am when four employees began complaining of headaches, dizziness and nausea. An estimated 12 staff were transported to other hospitals while others were treated and released. No patients experienced any symptoms. Fire and police officials were investigating. Tests for carbon monoxide were negative, and there were no liquid spills or gas in the operating room. BBC News, 11 Aug 2017.