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Man swallows 700g of metal

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-13 09:09

A man in northern Peru has had nearly 700g of metal removed from his stomach.

Construction worker Requelme Abanto told Peru's Channel 9 that he had been eating nails, coins, copper wire and scrap metal for months and may now do it "as sport".

Abanto said: "They call me the hardware store. I swallowed 17 nails in February and didn't die. Five-inch nails, all in one day."

Cajamarca hospital surgeon Carlos Delgado told The AP: "We went in thinking it could be appendicitis, but weren't we surprised by what we found - a hole in his stomach."

He added that specialists would now examine the 26-year-old's mental health following surgery.