When you think of the strangest thing you’ve ever swallowed, what do you think would be on the list? I’m sure everyone has swallowed a coin or marble when they were a kid. Hopefully, if you ever swallowed magnets, you only ever swallowed one. One thing you’ve probably never thought to swallow was a knife, let alone forty of them.
That’s exactly what one man did, and no, he wasn’t from Florida. As it turns out, the Indian man was suffering from Pica, a disorder that can cause you to crave anything from dirt to human hair. According to reports, he had swallowed the forty knives over a 2-month period. They ranged in size from a couple of inches up to around seven inches in length. Also, while some of the knives were folded up, several of them had exposed blades. Doctors are guessing it was the open ones that caused the massive internal bleeding which necessitated 5 hours of surgery.
As is common with people suffering from Pica, the man said he was addicted to the knives and just really liked the taste of metal. Sure, this may sound strange, but the NIH says that nearly a third of all children show some symptoms of Pica in early development. In Mexico, one study even showed that 44% of pregnant women seem to exhibit symptoms of the disorder.
The causes for the disorder can sometimes be connected to the body needing a particular mineral that it is lacking or other times it can purely be a psychological symptom that manifests by eating weird stuff.