The man in question only barely avoided losing complete use of his genitals after he was badly bitten by a stealthy cobra lurking inside a toilet in South Africa.
Discover our latest podcast
Severely injured genitals
The tourist was out on holiday when the incident took place. As he decided to go to the loo, the man was viciously attacked right in his sack as he sat down on the toilet. The snake dug its teeth into his testicles injecting highly poisonous venom resulting in what we can only imagine to be excruciating pain.
As he was being flown to the nearest hospital, the man started vomiting while his private parts swell up 'with a deep purple discolouration, indicating scrotal necrosis.' In other words, the skin on his scrotum was literally rotting. To make matters worse, the man's penis also took a blow during the attack and needed to be addressed as well.
Extensive plastic surgery
He was eventually administered anti-venom, tetanus and broad-spectrum antibiotics to treat the injury and went on to have surgery performed to save his genitals. As it was the first time doctors from the South African hospital had dealt with such an extreme case, the event was documented as a study published in the journal Urology Case Report. The report stated:
Six days after repatriation, a plastic surgeon performed penile shaft debridement, with extensive resection of dead tissue. After a further 6 days, a full-thickness graft was harvested from the groin and placed over the penile defect.
Despite the horrendous injury that nearly cost him his reproductive organs, the surgery—though complicated—was a success. The man now has a fully functioning member.
