A hospital in the city of Toulon in southern France was evacuated in a panic Saturday after an 88-year-old patient arrived with an explosive surprise: A World War One-era artillery shell inserted straight up his rectum, according to French media outlet Var-Matin.
The bombshell discovery of what was revealed to be over 20 centimeters long and over five centimeters wide (eight inches long and two inches wide) loaded up the very wrong kind of chamber in this senior citizen prompted an immediate scare in the hospital, causing an evacuation of the pediatric and adult emergency cases and with all incoming emergency patients being diverted.
Artillery shells saw widespread use in the First World War and was responsible for countless deaths, including on the harsh battlefields of France. Luckily, however, it seems that this elderly enthusiast of early 20th-century explosive ordinance was not in possession of a live explosive, as bomb disposal experts concluded that the artillery shell wasn't going to explode inside his backside, according to Var-Matin.
Why the explosive was slid up the soon-to-be nonagenarian's anal cavity is thought to be for sexual purposes. Strange objects being rammed into one's body for such a reason isn't anything doctors aren't used to, but an artillery shell is nonetheless something nobody saw coming.
"Apples, mangoes, even shaving cream cans - we're used to finding strange objects inserted where they shouldn't be. But an artillery shell? Never!"
Toulon doctor
"Apples, mangoes, even shaving cream cans - we're used to finding strange objects inserted where they shouldn't be," a doctor said, according to Var-Matin. "But an artillery shell? Never!"
Preposterous posterior precedence: Not the first artillery shell found inside someone's rectum
Over a year ago, in December 2021, a man came to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in the UK with a six-centimeter by 17-centimeter World War Two-era mortar shell plunged up his rearmost chamber, which in turn also sparked the arrival of the bomb disposal squad, though it was also later determined to not be a live explosive.
The man in question here was described as an "avid collector of military memorabilia." As for what circumstances would cause a mortar shell to become stored away in his buttocks, he claimed it was because he slipped and fell onto it.
The veracity of this claim is unknown.