French man, 24, gets 8-inch live WW1 artillery shell stuck in bum, bomb scare leads to hospital evacuation

A French hospital was evacuated after doctors discovered a live First World War artillery shell inside a man during emergency surgery.

The incident occurred late on Saturday night, Jan. 31 at the accident and emergency unit of Rangueil Hospital in Toulouse, after the unnamed 24-year-old arrived in what officials described as “extreme discomfort”.

8-inch WW1 artillery shell

The patient, a French national, had inserted a large object into his rectum and required urgent medical intervention.

Doctors carried out an emergency surgery and were reportedly shocked to discover that the object was an unexploded artillery shell dating back to the 1910s.

The brass-and-copper shell, described as pointed, was almost eight inches long and just over an inch wide.

An insider source told the New York Post that the man was “in a state of extreme discomfort, having inserted a large object up his rectum”.

Such shells were manufactured in large numbers and deployed against British and French forces across the Western Front between 1914 and 1918.

Many remain buried to this day and are frequently uncovered during what is known as the “Iron Harvest” — the annual discovery of unexploded ordnance on farmland and construction sites across Europe.

Bomb disposal experts called in, hospital evacuated

Hospital staff immediately alerted bomb disposal specialists, with firefighters also placed on standby, due to concerns that the live munition could detonate.

A security perimeter was set up and staff and patients were evacuated from parts of the hospital as a precaution.

It was later confirmed that the shell was safely removed by the bomb disposal teams and posed no further risk to the hospital.

Legal action

The patient remained in hospital following the operation and is expected to be interviewed by the police.

According to a police officer, as quoted by The Daily Mail, prosecutors are considering whether legal action should be taken against the man for handling “category A munitions”, a serious offence under French law.

Authorities have not confirmed how the artillery shell came to be inside the man’s body.

However, local French newspaper La Dépêche, as cited by the New York Post, reported that medical staff in Toulouse are “accustomed to treating victims injured during sexual games”, while experts speculated the incident may have been linked to a party stunt gone wrong.

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