USB cable stuck inside 'curious' boy's penis

Doctors have removed a smartphone charging cable from a "curious" teenager's penis after he inserted it up his urethra and it knotted in his bladder.

The 13-year-old, whose name was not revealed, is said to have inserted half the USB cable - about 20 centimetres (7.8 inches) - up his penis before realising he could not pull it out again.

His concerned parents took him to a local hospital in the county of Linkou in China's north-eastern Heilongjiang province, where medics applied lubrication in a bid to pull the cable out.

However, when that proved unsuccessful and caused intense pain for the teenager, he was transferred to the Harbin Children's Hospital the very next day.

Doctor Xu Liyan, the facility's resident urologist, said: "He cut off one end of the cable and inserted it into his urethra."

An X-ray picture shows the phone cable stuck and knotted inside the boy from China. Photo / Australscope

She added: "The cable reached his bladder, where it tangled and ended up in a knot, so when he tried to pull it back out, it became stuck."

Doctor Xu said she and her team had no choice but to operate on the boy.

They cut into his bladder to find the knotted cable, snipped the tangled section and removed the remaining cord through his urethra the same way it went in.

The boy, who claimed he was "curious" about his genitalia, was discharged from hospital on 3rd July - just over two weeks after his surgery.