Pictures: FTP
A Filipino man was unaware he had a knife stuck on his chest for more than a year.
Kent Ryan Tomao, 36, was attacked and stabbed while walking home from work in Kidapawan City, the Philippines, in January last year.
Bungling medics treated him but instead of removing the knife, they simply sewed up the wound leaving the broken-off blade stuck in his chest.
Shockingly, Kent had the weapon lodged next to his rib cage just inches from piercing his lungs for more than a year before it was discovered during a health check for a new job on Tuesday (March 23).
Kent is now furious that the doctors missed the four-inch-long knife blade and is demanding they remove it properly so he can start work as a miner, as his new employers believe it is not safe for him to go down pits with the knife inside him.
He said: ‘The doctors did not check my wounds properly last year so I believe they are partly at fault about what happened. They should fix this.’
The worker claimed that the doctors only stitched his wounds to stop them from bleeding at the hospital. He was given painkillers and sent home.
Fourteen months later Kent was hired at a mining company in nearby province Agusan del Sur and he was set to start next month.
The company required a pre-employment medical test but an x-ray examination found the knife pointing upwards and stuck in his rib cage.
Kent said his chest was sometimes painful during the cold weather but everything was tolerable and he never believed there was a serious problem.
He said: ‘I always wondered why I felt pain in my chest when the weather was cold. But I had no idea there is a knife in my chest.
‘The pain was never bad enough to even go to see a doctor. I just waited for the pain to pass. Now I’m relieved that I know the real problem.’
The worker will have to undergo an operation to remove the knife before he can start working but he said he doesn’t have enough money to pay for it.
He said: ‘I can’t start working until I remove this knife but without a job I will not have money to pay for my medical needs.’
The worker will return to the hospital next month where he had the botched medical procedure to ask them to fix it.
Kent added he had no intentions to sue the hospital or the doctor who stitched up his wound and only wanted to have the knife removed so he can start work.
He said: ‘I will not press charges, I just want them to remove the knife so I can start working in my new company.’