French hospital fights rearguard action over wartime shell

Bomb technicians were called in to examine the shell and rule out the possibility of an explosion. Photo / Simplefoto

A French hospital had to be evacuated after an 88-year-old man turned up with a First World War shell stuck in his rear.

Though the man assured staff in the emergency department that the shell was a collector’s item that had been deactivated, there was a scramble to evacuate some of its patients, redirect others, and call in the bomb squad.

As an added precautionary measure, a tent was set up outside the hospital to treat the octogenarian in isolation.

“An apple, a mango, or even shaving foam... we’re used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” a staff member at the Sainte-Musse hospital in Toulon told Nice-Matin. “But a shell? Never.”

The man’s appearance at the hospital required a major reshuffling and partial evacuation of patients. For a few hours, new patients were redirected to other hospitals.

Once bomb technicians confirmed the shell was inactive and ruled out the possibility of an explosion, doctors proceeded with its removal.

But as told to Nice-Matin, “it rarely comes out from where it comes in”. To extract the shell, which was 6cm in diameter and 20cm in length, doctors had to perform abdominal surgery and remove it from the other end.

The man had reportedly found the shell at his brother’s home, hospital sources said.

The surgery went smoothly and the patient is recovering.

Hospital management confirmed that the incident occurred between 9pm and 11.30pm on Saturday “requiring the intervention of bomb defusers, the evacuation of adult and paediatric emergencies as well as the redirection of emergency flow”.

Along with an internal memo from hospital management thanking staff for their mobilisation that night, a photo of the extracted shell also did the rounds among workers and eventually on the internet after being posted online.