Man lodges fork in penis

An elderly man has had a ten-centimetre fork surgically removed from inside his penis after an attempt to achieve sexual gratification went awry.

The seventy-year-old man presented to the emergency department of a Canberra hospital with a bleeding member.

He admitted to having inserted the fork into his urethra some twelve hours earlier before it became stuck.

Although doctors were unable to see the metal cutlery, they were able to feel it under the skin.

The fork was also clearly visible in x-rays.

The man was placed under a general anaesthetic before doctors removed the utensil using forceps.

The unusual medical case was subsequently published in The International Journal of Surgery in order to assist other medical teams in dealing with similar circumstances.

The doctors who removed the fork said it was important to share the case with others, "given the great management challenge faced by the oddity and infrequency with which a fork is encountered in the penile urethra."

"Autoerotic stimulation with the aid of self-inserted urethral foreign bodies has been existent since time immemorial and have presented an unusual but known presentation to urologists," the journal states.

The journal cited infection and foreign body migration as the greatest risks to patients suffering from objects lodged in the urethra.