A hospital in France had to be evacuated last weekend – for a rather unusual reason. Because, as the local newspaper "Var Matin" reports, an 88-year-old reported to the emergency room of the Sainte-Musse hospital in Toulon on the Côte d'Azur on Saturday evening. He has a grenade in his rectum. Although he had assured that the projectile from the First World War could no longer explode, the hospital management organized an evacuation at least of the adjacent hospital areas. In addition, patients were diverted to nearby hospitals for several hours, the newspaper reports. In order not to endanger the patients in the intensive care unit located above the emergency room, a demolition squad was called and a treatment tent was set up in front of the hospital, one of the hospital staff told the newspaper.

Only when the explosives experts had identified the grenade as a harmless collector's item from World War I did the removal of the foreign object from the elderly patient's body begin. A specialist operated on the grenade from the abdomen. "It rarely comes out the way it went in," the newspaper commented internally. After all, the grenade was five to six centimeters in diameter and about 20 centimeters long, reports hospital staff. The patient is fine again. "Var Matin" reports that the hospital management thanked the staff by email. She confirmed to the newspaper an incident on Saturday evening that required defusers and a partial evacuation.

"An apple, a mango or even a can of shaving cream: we're used to finding unusual objects in the wrong places," one of the hospital staff told Var Matin. "But a grenade? Never!" It seems like there's a first time even for something like this.

Quellen: "Varmatin.com", "Nice Matin".