Your body is a temple, but sometimes that
temple can have nasty invaders. At other times, people choose to put rather
strange things inside their personal shrines. Over the years, doctors around the world have
pulled out some pretty horrible things from people's bodies, or they discovered things
growing inside of people that are the stuff of nightmares. Hello and welcome to another episode of The
Infographics Show. Today, we're taking a look at the most shocking
things ever discovered inside people. Before we start, we have to warn you that
this episode is not for the squeamish, and if you're currently eating, you may want to
click away and come back when done. Just don't say we didn't warn you. First up, we have the story of a six-year-old
British girl from just this year who went to the hospital complaining about abdominal
pain and continuous vomiting for three to four days. On physical inspection, her stomach was rigid
to the touch, and she was clearly dehydrated. When the doctors sent her off for an X-ray,
they were shocked to discover a large, dark mass in her bowels that wound up into her
intestines. Rushing her to surgery, the doctors pulled
a giant hairball weighing 4 pounds (1.8 kg) and measuring 3 feet (1 meter) long. The hairball had settled in her bowels and
caused a blockage, while its tail extended all the way up into her intestines. Doctors would go on to diagnose her with trichotillomania
or Rapunzel syndrome, a condition where people pull out their own hair and sometimes eat
it. The hair tends to accumulate over years and
years until it finally causes a blockage that can turn fatal, as was the case for a 16-year-old
British girl who died after her hairball became infected. So next time you complain about a hair in
your food, be glad it's not a 4-pound ball of it. And on the topic of food you're being served... Back in 2008, American Rosemary Alvarez began
to develop balance problems, difficulty swallowing, and numbness in her left arm. After being referred to a neurosurgeon, an
MRI discovered a mass on the base of her brain stem that looked like a brain tumor. Notoriously difficult to operate on, cancers
located along the brain stem are difficult to remove, and the operation can be fatal. Resigning herself to her potential fate, Rosemary
said a tearful possible goodbye to her family and was put under as doctors began her operation. As her neurosurgeon delicately prodded around
in her brain, however, he discovered something far more shocking than a brain tumor -- a
tapeworm had attached itself to her brain stem and was actually eating it. For weeks, Alvarez had had a tapeworm munching
away at her brain, and it was completely oblivious. Easily removed, Alvarez woke up to good news
that she was cancer-free, and the worm had been removed. But just how did a worm end up on her brain
stem? Well, according to her doctors, Alvarez had
been served food tainted with the feces of another human being who was infected with
the pork tapeworm parasite. It kind of makes you think twice about eating
out, doesn't it? Doctors are often there to remove foreign
objects from your body, yet every year hundreds of doctors actually manage to leave stuff
inside people after successful surgeries. Earlier in 2018, a man returned to a hospital
in England two weeks after his surgery, complaining about severe abdominal pain. A quick scan showed that a 10-inch (25.4 cm)
retractor had been left inside him from his previous operation. Another man in the US suffered for two months
after cancer surgeons left a 12-inch (30.5 cm) retractor in his chest. Despite complaining to his doctors about the
constant pain, his inability to bend over, and the presence of an oddly-shaped lump in
his chest, he was told it was all merely a part of recovering from surgery. The man would go on to get $100,000 in compensation
from the hospital and free surgery to remove the offending object. But if one medical instrument left behind
is a nightmare, how about two inside the same patient and back to back? In 2000, a 59-year-old patient discovered
that a 6-inch (15.2 cm) surgical clamp had been left inside his intestines for years. After having a surgery to remove the offending
clamp, the doctors left yet another clamp inside him in its place! Doctors often count their tools before and
after a surgery to make sure nothing is left behind, but it seems like these doctors made
the mistake of counting the removed clamp and not counting the clamp used to remove
it. If that makes your head spin, well, it did
that for us too. Sometimes it's not surgical tools that end
up inside the human body, though. In 2006, a 37-year -old Chinese man named
Li Fu was involved in an armed robbery and physically assaulted, resulting in several
wounds that included a stab in the head. When he was treated, the stab wound was largely
overlooked, and for years, Li Fu complained of constant migraines to his doctors. Baffled as to the cause, it took his doctors
four years to order an X-ray of Li Fu's skull, which revealed the 4-inch (10.2 cm) blade
of the knife used to stab him had broken off and lodged deep in his brain. Sometimes things don't need to come inside
our body from the outside world; sometimes some pretty horrific things can grow inside
our bodies all on their own. Indian man Sanju Bhagat had been teased his
whole life for his big belly, and for his entire life, he and his family had written
it off as nothing more than a stubborn gut that no diet could touch. After 36 years, though, Bhagat suddenly woke
up one night with difficulty breathing and was rushed to the hospital. There doctors theorized that Bhagat's big
belly was actually a tumor and that it had grown so large it was now pressing on his
diaphragm. Rushing him into surgery, the doctors began
to cut into Bhagat's stomach only to be shocked when gallons of fluid spilled out. Digging deeper, Bhagat's surgeon stuck his
hand into the mass of fluid and was horrified to feel another fully formed human hand inside. Bhagat's doctors would go on to remove a parasitic
twin that had been living inside Bhagat for 36 years. Known as fetus in fetu, it is an extremely
rare condition where a fetus gets trapped inside its twin as the two are developing. Typically, the trapped fetus can survive as
a parasite by forming an umbilical cordlike structure that joins it to its twin's blood
supply. Typically, the parasitic twin is removed by
doctors shortly after birth, or both twins may die from the stress of sharing a single
placenta. However, in Bhagat's case, the twin that developed
inside him had connected its own tissues directly to Bhagat's blood supply, and it had even
continued to grow and develop after birth to become, as his doctor put it, a strange,
half-formed creature that had feet and hands that were very developed, with very long fingernails. Was the twin actually alive and conscious? Nobody knows, and Bhagat never asked as he
was not interested in hearing the gruesome details. Ridiculed his entire life for looking pregnant,
who could have guessed that the truth was a lot closer than anyone could have guessed? Pica is the strange fascination with eating
non-food items, and people have been known to eat some pretty strange things from light
bulbs to car tires though typically not in large quantities. Back in 1979, however, a Dutch woman named
Margaret Daalman was rushed to the hospital complaining of stomach pains, and after a
quick X-ray, the doctors were stunned to discover what looked like a small squid inside her
body. However, a closer look revealed that the mass
was actually a huge number of silverware, all swallowed one by one! The doctors immediately rushed Daalman into
surgery and proceeded to pull out of her a whopping 78 pieces of cutlery. One medic said, “Every time she sat down
for a meal she would ignore the food and eat the cutlery.” Mrs. Daalman admitted to a lifelong obsession
with eating cutlery, and she had been treated in the past for the problem. When asked about it, she said that she never
ate knives, though, and couldn't explain why. We've covered animals, surgical implements,
secret twins, and cutlery -- what about plants? Well, if you thought there's no way you could
get a flower to grow inside you, think again. In 2013, a 16-month-old girl in China was
brought to the hospital, scratching at her left ear and crying. When doctors took a look inside, they were
shocked to discover a fully grown dandelion in her ear canal. Apparently, her parents had seen a seed fall
into her ear months prior but didn't think much of it until the little girl began to
display extreme discomfort and pain. Doctors said that if she hadn't been treated
when she was, the growing dandelion could have caused serious health problems for her. Even stranger than a dandelion in the ear
is the case of a man from Taiwan in 2011 complaining of extreme pain in his molar. A dentist discovered that the molar had decayed,
and the molar directly underneath it was missing. What shocked the attending dentist was the
fact that a guava seed had managed to get stuck in the rotted molar and begun to germinate
and sprout. After removing the tooth, the dentist did
the next most logical thing. He called in other staff members to marvel
at the sprouting tooth, causing the patient to flee in embarrassment. Feel like brushing your teeth yet? Maybe you're having second thoughts about
eating out tonight. Have you checked your ears lately to make
sure nothing's managed to fall in there and start sprouting? The world is full of tiny wonders, and it
seems like a large amount of them are just dying to get inside you somehow. Have you ever discovered something strange
in your body? What's the most shocking thing you've ever
heard of being inside another person? And be sure to check out our other video What
Happened To Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?! Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t
forget to like, share, and subscribe. See you next time!
