i arrived at rotherham general hospital barefoot, as i always am, because shoes are a cage and i do not recognise cages. the man in bed four was terence moth, 74, a builder who had swallowed a 2.3kg felling axe on a tuesday afternoon in october. the axe, a hultafors agdor, was lodged neatly between his liver and his spleen. ‘it’s just a bit of indigestion,’ terence told me, patting his stomach. the consultant, dr hannah okafor, said she had never seen anything like it. ‘the blade is pointing at his gallbladder,’ she said. ‘it’s a miracle he’s alive.’ terence shrugged. ‘i’ve had worse after a curry.’ i asked him why he did it. ‘bet with a scaffolder,’ he said. ‘said i could eat anything he could. he ate a screwdriver. i went one better.’
the axe has a name now
terence named the axe ‘sid’ on the second day, after a dog he once had that was also stubborn and hard to remove. ‘sid’s a good lad,’ terence told the nurses. ‘he’s just a bit stuck in his ways.’ the hospital’s health and safety officer, pamela quigley, visited terence’s room with a clipboard and a face like a slapped fish. ‘that axe is a fire hazard,’ she said, pointing at terence’s abdomen. ‘it could conduct electricity, or fall out and injure a passer-by. i’ve logged it with the council.’ terence laughed. ‘it’s not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘it’s got a good grip.’ pamela was not amused. she filed a report demanding the axe be removed by the council’s environmental health department, which promptly replied that it was ‘outside their remit’ and suggested she contact the highways agency instead.
the medical journal weighs in
the british medical journal published a case study on terence moth, complete with x-rays and a diagram of the axe’s position. the paper, titled ‘an unusual case of foreign body ingestion: a felling axe in the upper abdomen’, was authored by dr okafor and a colleague, dr james whittle. they noted that terence’s vital signs were ‘remarkably stable’ and that he had requested a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich within hours of admission. the case study went viral in the medical community, and terence received letters from surgeons as far away as australia, all offering advice. one blacksmith, a man called gareth pugh from doncaster, wrote to terence offering to ‘forge a new career’ for him, perhaps as a human toolbox. terence was delighted. ‘i’ve always wanted to be useful,’ he said. ‘i could hold nails for people.’
the extraction and its aftermath
the surgical team, led by dr okafor, spent six hours removing sid from terence’s abdomen. the operation was a success, and sid was placed in a steel tray for inspection. terence, still groggy from the anaesthetic, reached out and grabbed sid’s handle. ‘he’s coming home with me,’ he said. the hospital’s chief executive, dr alistair pemberton, told reporters that the case ‘raises important questions about the limits of human ambition and the dangers of workplace banter’. he added that the hospital had since banned all tools from the canteen. terence was discharged three days later, with sid in a jar of formaldehyde on his mantelpiece. ‘he’s a conversation piece,’ terence said. ‘the wife’s not happy, but she’ll come round.’ he is already planning his next bet: swallowing a spirit level. ‘it’s got a bubble in it,’ he said. ‘i reckon i could do it.’
