It was a few hours into a day shift with Big Al, around 10am we were dispatched to a call for a male in his late fifties. He lived in a very modest, terraced house with his elderly mother. The only information on the screen was “object stuck, no longer visible”.

We were greeted at the door by the patient, he was jittery and ushering his frail mother into another room. He led us into the lounge and closed the door behind him. He was tall and very slim, wearing shorts which had a huge blood stain to the behind area and blood was trickling down the back of his legs. I then noticed droplets of blood trailed on the carpet. The room was dark, curtains closed and the decor and furniture were stuck somewhere in the 1980’s. He avoided eye contact with us for the most part, taking a very quick glances occasionally but always reverted back to looking at the floor.

“What happened?” I asked. He very sheepishly explained that he had become too carried away with an 8 inch butt plug and a tub of lube. The toy had completely disappeared inside him and he was unable to retrieve it. This had happened in the early hours, between 2am and 3am. I asked why it had taken him so long to call us. “I’ve been trying everything I could think of to get it out!” He explained, “I’ve tried a cork-screw, screw driver, wooden spoon but I just can’t get it! And now I’m bleeding”.

I told him that we needed to take him to hospital and whilst he made up a lie to tell his mum and got himself ready in another room, Big Al began to wind me up by telling me that I needed to examine his anus once we were in the ambulance. Being new still and very naive I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. I decided that as Big Al was a higher skill grade than I, plus being another male, I would leave it to him to look if he felt it necessary. He didn’t.

We all got into the back of the ambulance and the natural light outside revealed that this man was actually very pale looking, he said he was unable to sit down as it caused him pain. He lifted his t-shirt and revealed to me a very obvious, bulbous shaped protrusion in his lower abdomen area. I felt the embarrassment for him and thought about his old mum, left in the house alone, not knowing what was going on.

I asked him to lay on the trolley bed and began to do a set of observations. His blood pressure was on the low side, and his heart rate was fast. He was suffering from hypovolemic shock (severe blood loss) and we made the decision to take him into hospital as a priority call. I later found out that the butt plug had to be surgically removed and he ended up losing a portion of his bowel during the operation.