Doctors save man by pumping 15 cans of beer into his body
A man at risk of dying of alcohol poisoning has had 15 cans of beer pumped into his stomach by doctors.
Nguyen Van Nhat, 48, was unconscious in a hospital in Quang Tri, Vietnam, The Mirror reports.
Every hour he was out cold doctors pumped a can of beer into his stomach with 15 used over the day.
Dr Le Van Lam told local media the man’s level of methanol in his blood was 1,119 times higher than the appropriate limit.
Initially, three cans were used to slow down his liver processing the methanol but more were needed.
Dr Lam said that alcohol comes in two variants, ethanol and methanol, and the body breaks down ethanol as a priority even when a person is unconscious.
Ethanol is found in most alcoholic beverages while methanol is found in cleaning products, anti-freeze and bootlegged liquor.
Methanol poisoning can cause permanent blindness and potentially death.
By pumping beer into his body, with ethanol in it, doctors were able to perform a proper dialysis on him before the body processed all the methanol in his system.
He eventually regained consciousness. It’s not known what he had been drinking.
