Shocked Russian surgeons claim they found a five-centimetre fir tree growing inside a man's lung as they operated on him for suspected cancer.
The amazing discovery apparently was made when they opened up Artyom Sidorkin, 28, to remove what they thought was a serious tumour.
Sidorkin had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood. Doctors were convinced he had cancer, Russian website mosnews.com reported.
'We were 100 per cent sure,' said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev from Izhevsk in the Urals. 'We did X-rays and found what looked exactly like a tumour.
'I had seen hundreds before, so we decided on surgery.'
Before removing part of the man's lung, the surgeon investigated the tissue - and said they found what looked like grown fir tree needles in it.
'I thought I was hallucinating,' said Kamashev.
'I asked my assistant to have a look: 'Come and see this - we've got a fir tree here'. He nodded in shock.
'I blinked three times, sure I was seeing things,' he told the Komsomolskaya Pravda Daily.
The report also appeared in popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Gazeta, and was picked up by Russian news service Novosti.
Medical staff - arguing that a five-centimetre branch is too big to be swallowed - believe Sidorkin had somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted into a small fir tree inside his lung.
The explanation echoes what children are often jokingly told by their elders: That if you swallow the seeds of a fruit or vegetable it may grow inside you.
The spruce, which was apparently touching the man's capillaries and causing severe pain, was removed, they said.
'It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me,' Sidorkin was quoted as saying.
'I'm so relieved it's not cancer.'
source
The amazing discovery apparently was made when they opened up Artyom Sidorkin, 28, to remove what they thought was a serious tumour.
Sidorkin had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood. Doctors were convinced he had cancer, Russian website mosnews.com reported.
'We were 100 per cent sure,' said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev from Izhevsk in the Urals. 'We did X-rays and found what looked exactly like a tumour.
'I had seen hundreds before, so we decided on surgery.'
Before removing part of the man's lung, the surgeon investigated the tissue - and said they found what looked like grown fir tree needles in it.
'I thought I was hallucinating,' said Kamashev.
'I asked my assistant to have a look: 'Come and see this - we've got a fir tree here'. He nodded in shock.
'I blinked three times, sure I was seeing things,' he told the Komsomolskaya Pravda Daily.
The report also appeared in popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Gazeta, and was picked up by Russian news service Novosti.
Medical staff - arguing that a five-centimetre branch is too big to be swallowed - believe Sidorkin had somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted into a small fir tree inside his lung.
The explanation echoes what children are often jokingly told by their elders: That if you swallow the seeds of a fruit or vegetable it may grow inside you.
The spruce, which was apparently touching the man's capillaries and causing severe pain, was removed, they said.
'It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me,' Sidorkin was quoted as saying.
'I'm so relieved it's not cancer.'
source