Doctors at the Nagapattinam Government hospital were in for a shock on May 27, moments after they received the X-ray of a 29-year-old patient. The resident from Nagore had arrived with complaints of pain in his rectum and uneasiness. The source of his discomfort soon became clear — a 250 ml glass bottle lodged in patient's the sigmoid colon.

"We were definitely shocked by what we were seeing," says Dr S Pandiyaraj, the General Surgeon at the hospital. "I had never seen something like this in my entire career so far," he adds.

The patient (whose name is being withheld for privacy reasons) claimed to have been inebriated when he inserted the bottle into his anal canal himself, following which it entered the rectum. His attempts soon after to remove it failed and he managed to push it further up into his system. The doctor states that the patient did not reveal the matter to his family and remained in pain for two days before approaching the hospital.

"Ideally we wouldn't want to do the surgery without conducting a test for coronavirus. But this was a glass bottle and if it broke it could have caused severe internal damage," the surgeon says. "So we took the risk and immediately conducted the surgery. We gave the patient spinal anaesthesia to make him unconscious and managed to remove the bottle in a two-hour surgery," he adds.

The patient was advised to stay in the hospital for observation for two days.

"He still has tears caused by the bottle and it is causing discomfort. So we are observing his condition," says the doctor.

Liquor shops across the state opened after May 14. The Tamil Nadu government had approached the Supreme Court over the Madras High Court's order to shut down liquor outlets in the state. This was based on a petition from office bearers of Makkal Needhi Maiam who alleged that no physical distancing was maintained at these outlets. Following this, the state government has restricted the number of people in outlets and has enforced physical distancing in outlets.