US woman accidentally swallows knife after laughing at wrong moment

New York, August 3 (ANI): A woman in Atlanta landed herself in an emergency room after accidentally swallowing a butter knife while laughing.

The New England Journal of Medicine published X-ray images showing the knife lodged in the 30-year-old's esophagus.

Drs. Aida Venado and Sarah Prebil said the woman had a history of bulimia, and stuck the knife down her throat to prove to her friends that she no longer had a gag reflex because of it, the New York Daily News reported.

Something made her laugh, and the knife slid down into her esophagus.

She rushed to the emergency department at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, vomiting blood and complaining of chest pain.

Doctors were able to remove the knife through an endoscopy, and the woman did not suffer any damage to her throat or stomach.

Incredibly, her husband said she had swallowed a knife four years earlier. That time, surgery was required to remove it.

The woman was transferred to a psychiatric unit after the knife was removed, Drs. Venado and Prebil said. (ANI)