The anonymous Englishman who managed to lodge a 2-inch-wide World War II anti-tank shell inside his rectum back in 2021 has been unseated.
The phrase “shell shocked” took on new meaning over the weekend when a 24-year-old Frenchman hobbled into Rangueil Hospital in Toulouse, France, complaining of unspecified pain.
Rushed into surgery, the doctors soon discovered that the source of the “unspecified pain” turned out to be an 8-inch long 37mm brass-and copper shell used by the Imperial German Army in the late stages of the Great War.
According to the French newspaper La Dépêche, the medical staff in Toulouse are “accustomed to treating victims injured during sexual games,” but are understandably unused to dislodging centuries-old munitions from rectums.
“He was in a state of extreme discomfort, having inserted a large object up his rectum,” said an investigating source, stating the obvious.
The artillery shell, unexploded at the time of the removal, resulted in the evacuation of the hospital, with an explosive ordnance disposal squad called to the hospital to ensure the munition was not in danger of detonating within the individual’s personal hurt locker.
France is currently edging the British in its centuries-old rivalry, as this is not the first time a Frenchman has married munition with derrière.
In 2022, an 88-year-old patient visited Hospital Sainte Musse in Toulon stunning doctors when they removed what turned out to be a WWI-era French munition measuring 8 inches long and more than 2 inches wide — from the man’s rectum. Surgeons were forced to cut open his abdomen in order to remove the hefty relic due to the shell’s considerably above-average size.
“An apple, a mango, or even a can of shaving foam, we are used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” one doctor reported. “But a shell? Never!”
While the echoes of the Great War are now more than a century old, the vestiges of the deadly conflict remain.
Along the Western Front, namely France and Belgium, the remnants of the First World War are still coming to the surface.
About 1.5 billion shells were fired during the war, and unexploded ammunition continues to plague Western Europe, particularly France.
An annual collection of the ordnances called “récolte de fer,” or “iron harvest” work to rid the land — and now rectums — of the explosives.
On Saturday, firefighters confirmed that they had defused the bomb and that there was no further risk to the patient or those in proximity to the hospital.
While the patient is expected to make a full physical recovery, the mental scars of his very own trench warfare is another story.
Still recuperating, the French national is set to be interviewed by police this week and prosecutors are considering legal action against the 24-year-old for handling “category A munitions,” according to an officer.
Claire Barrett is an editor and military history correspondent for Military Times. She is also a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill and Michigan football.
J.D. Simkins is the executive editor of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.
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