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August 13th, 2010
06:52 PM ET
How can a pea grow in a man’s lung? That's been a water cooler topic for the better part of this week. It happened to 75-year-old Ron Sveden, who had a half-inch-long sprout removed from his lung, which was first reported by a 20-year-old news intern at the Cape Cod Times on August 8. The story was picked up by TV stations, newspapers and websites around the world. Sveden was very sick when he was hospitalized on Memorial Day – he was having more difficulty breathing than he usually does with his emphysema. Sveden was expecting to learn he had lung cancer. Instead, he tells a Boston television station: “I was told that I had a pea seed in my lung that had split and had sprouted.” Dr. Jeff Spillane removed the obstruction. He tells CNN at first he couldn't see that a pea had been lodged in the lung because there was so much infected, swollen tissue around it. "His whole lobe was collapsed and there was pus behind...it was entrapped in what we call granulation tissue." But once removed, he says it looked like a pea or a bean. “It had a shoot coming out." Spillane, a thoracic surgeon at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts, doesn’t know how long the seed was in Sveden’s lung, but he believes it stayed in the airway because Sveden’s existing lung disease didn’t allow him to breathe very well and he couldn't cough it out. “Most of the time I'm dealing with pretty devastating illness,” Spillane says. But this case is different. “He really did get a very good outcome.” As for the likelihood of something sprouting inside the body, experts say it’s not impossible. Walter Reeves, a horticulturist, author and radio host in Atlanta, Georgia, says it’s conceivable if a seed gets lodged in a lung. “Isn't that what happens when a seed is underground and gets moisture and warmth? They [seeds] don't need light” he adds, at least not for the first two or three days. Reeves doesn’t have more details about Sveden’s situation than what’s been reported in the news media, but he points out that this could happen only with raw peas or beans or peanuts. Cooked peas or other legumes cannot germinate or sprout. Reeves says a raw peanut could easily sprout, as could dried peas, after soaking in water. “Those are quite capable of germinating.” Spillane says children, in particular, are known to have a peanuts go down the wrong way and get lodged in the lung, which is a very serious problem. “Kids have died from that stuff,” he says. Spillane is a little surprised at all the attention this story had received. He says removing objects from patients’ lungs happens frequently. “A week later [after Sveden’s surgery], I pulled a tooth out [of another patient]." Dr. Steve Georas, a pulmonologist in Rochester, New York, agrees. He says people inhale things into their lungs frequently, probably because the trachea and the esophagus are so close to each other. “We had a similar case at the University of Rochester where I practice. A patient had a pea wedged in his bronchus – it didn't turn into a plant." Spillane says he went into surgery to help people and to "pull the thorn out of the lion's paw. " Sveden’s sprouting pea, the surgeon says, “was the ultimate thorn in a lion's paw, I guess.” |
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Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love. Recent Posts
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Ok...this is like a 9 out of 10 on my weird-$#it-o-meter...
Then Goldilocks said: "Eew, this porridge is mixed with granulated tissue!"
@ Dan,
The "seed" in your groin sounds like a flea or insect larva. They don't move and resemble a small pale sprout...I've removed them from my dog before.
Oh yeah? I think your scale is about to change.... This is nothing compared to the guy in Europe last year who had (literally) a tree growing inside him. I believe it was some type of pine tree too.... google PINE TREE GROWING IN MAN (I just did, and its in fact a FIR (christmas type tree) that grew inside of a man. GOOGLE IT
My child (at the age of two) and unbeknownst to me, shoved a dry lima bean into one of her nostrils...When she went for a regular checkup weeks later the doctor noticed something green at the opening to her left nostril. He sedated her & pulled out a 3 inch long sprout complete with 2 leaves that were seeking the light near the opening of her nose. The bean had sprouted up in her sinus cavities above her nose. She was unharmed. She's 30 now & teaches school. I was never the same, however!
@ Dan
T M I, Dan, T M I, hee hee...
Dan...yeah...TMI about your "groin pimple."
man i hope i don't have anything growing in me, luck old dude eh. don cut it out a sprouting pimple, good one man.
MANY years ago my aunt, died in 1971, was blowing the hulls out of the birdseed that her canary ate from. It is a common practice, I am told. Well, somehow one of the intact seeds ended up in her eye. I remember her saying that she felt it when it first got in her eye but then the discomfort stopped. A week later, she was having a lot of trouble with that eye and noticed white "veins" around one corner of the eye. The pain got so bad she went to the doctor who removed the tiny sprouted seedling.
Steven Christopher Ieronimo,
looks like his spring pea went down the wrong pipe huh?!!! talk about johnny bean stock!!
This is a hoax of some kind. No one has yet explained where/how this guy got an unprocessed dried pea in his lung. Cooked, frozen, canned, and even raw green peas cannot sprout. Dried peas are rarely used for cooking in the U.S.
Seriously?! It's bean STALK, not stock. Gah!!
I'd saw a 10, right up there with the ex.
Wow,....amazing stories......i thought i heard it all...yet....i have one for you ... some time ago... i had a friend who had trouble urinating a seed was found planted in his manly thing... i forget what type of seed... he went to numerous uroligists only to be told it was phycosimatic...... but he was convinced after the upteen time ...from the women he encountered during his life...told him repeatedly...that he always smelt like a rosebush....go figure ....
I've never heard of anything like this before, but I have a kind of cool story about plants growing in weird places. I was in the valley behind my house and I found this old tennis ball with a large flower growing out of it! You could pick up the tennis ball, the plant was completely self contained inside of it. Nature is persistent!
Uh, Bob? Love the skepticism and all, but a Massachusettes man having unprocessed dried peas is really not so fantastical a proposition (and, by the way, it is not impossible for fresh peas to sprout). We love our farmers' markets around these parts.
Wonder if they actually planted the pea or just threw it away. hope they kept it growing...just imagine if it had killed him and then a tree would have grown out his grave. That would be amazing. Not for him, but for me perhaps
It actually wouldn't be a tree; rather it would be garden fresh peas.
Peas, peas do not grow into trees!!!!!
We should concentrate our force focus and think of whirled peas.
gross!
High thoughts...
Cldn't happen. After so many days after sprouting it needs sunlight. But yes, that would be wierd.
too bad they threw it away. I always say, give peas a chance
HAHA..this made my day!
Watched the video... guy totally has a sense of humor about it. Even if you've been deathly ill, a sprouting pea instead of cancer is life instead of death.
Yeah this is gross but that guy is super lucky given his condition.
I have seen one of our thoracic surgeons suck out liquefied fecal matter from a patients lungs. You would be surprised.
Even to me that sounds just plain unappetizing.
A two girls one cup scenario gone wrong?
Can two girls one cup ever go right? *shudder*
Is that even a comparison Jeepers? Thanks for bring back that trauma in my life; I gonna puke now.
~*****Freaks come out at night !! jigga jigga what what !!!*****~
It's common knowledge that this pea was a Republican plant? I mean it was greene, right? Those people will stop at nothing! What's next?!?
A nurse practitioner friend in Australia told me she treated a women who said she had "a tree growing out of my vagina" The woman had used some raw potato as a tampon when she ran out of conventional supplies and it had sprouted. Weirdness 9.5/10
THAT is hilarious!!!!
I think a potato would function more like a plug. That's wrong on more levels than I can count.
S ... pud.
Now that's a TRUE FREAK!! yuck
She couldn't be bothered to run to the store for pads or tampons, but she could findl a potato, peel it, cut it up and...whatever happened to wadded up tp, tissue, or paper towel? Please. If that happened, she is completely demented.
The pea grew because of those super growth chemicals Monsanto uses in producing their patented seeds.
Monsanto should sue him for patent infringement.
Hilarious!
Plantlife: slow, scary, inexorable.
My father was always fond of gardening, and when he died, instead of flowers, my sister Dot broght a tomato plant to his funeral. He had always said he wanted to die in his garden, but I never realized we could have turned him into a garden.
I look at you, and I see a garden waiting to happen...
Wow, how unexpectedly touching, both you and Manny. A fulgent light in a noisy comments page.
The moral of this story: chew your peas before you inhale them
It's Obamas fault
thats what i thought!!!
Okay, but why was he eating raw peas? Cooked peas would not have sprouted.
Shelled raw, sweet peas, fresh off the vine, are actually quite good and make a good salad addition. When we were little, we snuck into the garden and ate them – as well as the cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, melons and other handy snack food right there for the munching. Some types of green bean are tasty raw, too.
Raw peas are yummy, especially sugar snap peas! Now I might not eat them, for fear of inhaling!
Sometimes while gardening you'll pick a pea pod and shell it open and eat the raw peas. I would call it a fresh pea. You'd be surprised at the flavor. It's a real treat. But one you have to work for. Most people in the united states will never eat a truly fresh vegetable. If you don't grow it or pick it yourself it is not fresh.
fresh picked raw peas still warm from the sun are heavenly if I may say so. I think I ate more raw when I was a kid then my grandma actually got tho the table.
I have heard of "PEA BRAIN" but not "PEA LUNG"
We went picking Snow-Peas two months back and kept some raw peas in the fridge. They were sprouted when we took them out after about 2 weeks. They withstand that temperature ? (Fridge was on throught)
The glass of milk he used to wash down the pea was tainted with Miracle-grow...
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION IS, WHERE THE PEA CAME FROM?
Freaky. I think I'd rather have cancer.
Maybe not.
That is wrong. never say that kind of a thing.
Man! If they didn't catch this in time, it could have made him a vegetable!
Or a manwhich vegan sandwich
♫ All we are saying ♫
♫ is give peas a chance.♫
lol!!!
When my sister was about a year old, she developed an infection in her eye. It swelled up and was very irritated for a couple of days when they took her in to see the doctor. The doctor found (drum roll............) a Marigold (flower) seed that had started growing in the corner of her eye. I was 10 at the time... so I don't know how it was removed... but it was weird. Don't let your babies play with those dangerous flowers.
DAN said: "While working in the Australia outback I discovered a sore and swollen pimple in my groin. It was hard and unusual and I pushed on it with my fingers. To my surprise out came a small germinated seed. Yes strange things like this happen – it happened to me.." - Ummm.. that's called HERPES Dan... but you can call it a "seed" if you want.
I was thinking maybe he jerked off and it was a joke? Out popped his seed...
It was probably folliculitis
its has to be a frech pea, because peas fromcan will never sprout because the germ inside is dead by ridaition and boiling, so its may be a frozen green peas, not peas from a can or jare like the video shows. it is a very poosible cenarion and not surprising to me, mots of pepoles that have chronic cough may have small seeed like sesame seed or poppy seed or other small seeds they can lives years in your lungs, .. new question shoudlbe asked to patient with chronic cought !
Learn to spell, ignoramus!
That's why you should never smoke the seeds........420 bro!
CNN I read your news but PLEASE correct your grammatical errors before posting. I mean come on.
Marianna68 I'll read your comments, but PLEASE correct your punctuation errors before posting, for crying out loud.
whoever the last person to do lung surgery on him is, he has a strange sense of humor
This is nothing compared to the guy in Europe last year who had (literally) a tree growing inside him. I believe it was some type of pine tree too.... google PINE TREE GROWING IN MAN (I just did, and its in fact a FIR (christmas type tree) that grew inside of a man. GOOGLE IT
I thought this would be the one story that I would ever read from 2008-2012 as I crawl down the posts that would have no hope of finding the word "Obama". Sadly, it is not to be. It was posted in jest, obviously, but jest implies funny. It wasn't. My first and last post in the world of the unimaginative and imbecilic. Good bye to all my would-be fans. This is my one and only post. And as for reading the idiotic drivel on ever single comment string I've ever read...I'm grabbing a beer, sticking up my middle finger, inflating the escape ramp, and sliding away into almost famous. D.
Shizzle
Classic.
Look Dniddy the fact is it is GREAT that obama is the first black president and he does alot of good but he is also secretly doing a lot of bad, you cant expect everyone in the world to have the same views that's how we created democracy. He represents so much for EVERY community and race, but the fact is him personally is trying to take your individual rights away. please research. i am not doggin Obama and what he represents trust me but his views are not so great he is just another SLICK talker!!
Relax man! Btw, yours was the most dumb and boring of comments here, and let me tell you there are plenty.
Too Long; Didn't Read.
My grandmother always told me to never swallow a watermelon seed or they would start growing out my ears. If only she was here to read this story now.
I was doing research in a smalltown newspaper morgue and came across a story from the late 1800s about a seven-year-old girl who had died after a lingering illness that had caused excruciating stomach pains. The local doctor did an autopsy and found that a watermelon seed had taken root in her stomach and the white, sun-starved plant had filled it, causing her great pain and inability to eat, killing her.
I've had a plant growing in my brain since childhood. I don't wear a hat, I wear a pot.
ba-dum Pssssshhh!!!
Go green.
Maybe this is gods way at getting back at vegetarians.
I wish I could give all you commenters some commenting prizes! It's like you all write for Letterman!
A+++++++++++
That same thing happened to President Obama only it happened to him inside his head. Oh wait, thats his brain.
Last week I visited my EN&T doctor with a sinus infection and though he didn't pull out any foreign matter, he did extract a 3 inch long well-defined mucus body that he said would not have come out by itself. Two years ago he surgically removed a polyp from my sinuses. It does pay to periodically have your respiratory system examined.
Thanks for the visual.
Hey JackLumber: my info just may save someone's life someday.
Hey JackLumber: you sound like my wife.
Hey JackLumber:
I had a panoramic xray done a few years ago and they found a wisdom tooth in my sinus cavity. I had to have surgery to have it removed. Turned out not to be a wisdom tooth, but a huge cluster of teeth that had to be extracted through my throat.
WWWWTMI, my friend. Unbelievably grotesque. And graphic to boot. *shudder*
I had that happen with a sunflower seed once. Not fun. Hope you are better now.
That's nothing. I used to date this girl that had a pea where her brain was suppose to be.
I date her now. It's like 50 first dates.
jacklumber and tdiddy your absolutely hillairious!!!
Really funny!
Does this story develop for anyone a desire to watch the movie, 'The Day of the Triffids'?
Hey, it is the growing season in Massachusetts.
Well I guess they eliminated hospital food as the culprit since he was sick before they admitted him.
Yeah! The Jolly Green Giant. Well just as long as it
is not growing out your Rectum.
depends on where the cucumber is applied
My mother told me this story about a kid in her class growing up: He had shoved a lima bean up his nose and had to have surgery to have it removed after it started growing out of his tear duct. Bizarre.
and then the poop pee'd
I've heard of this before.. Seriously..
My husband when he was a little boy shoved a bean up his nose .No one knew.... He started coughing a lot..His Mom looked in his mouth to see his tonsils and there were sprouts hanging down the back of his throat..,~! She had no idea what it was..Took him to the doctor and he told her he had a bean in his nose..~! Then pulled it out ..
Sure, I tried peas once when I was young. Everybody did back then ... but I didn't inhale so it was OK.
Well done!
Just like Bush
I once had a friend who inhaled a marijuana seed. It sat in his lung and festered for three days and then sprouted. Before the summer was up, the weed was so pervasive it took over his entire body! Well, we smoked him after he died. Real good buzz too. White Widow, I believe.
tokatoo...Keith Richards snorted his dad's ashes, why wouldn't you smoke your friend? Makes perfect sense to me...kind of the stoners Circle of Life
It's good that he found a doctor specializing in peamonary conditions.
This guy at work had an Acacia tree removed from his butt.
"Rectum?".... "Rectum! Damn near killed him!"
"God has such a sense of humor...." Yes, I'm sure god figured he'd put a pea inside your husband's lung because he was bored...... He was probably up in the clouds, taking in all 3 of the Jackass movies in at one sitting (yes he has access to the new Jackass because he's god, and has access to all the new movies) and said, "I think I'll put a pea inside some guy's lung........
I found a lucky bamboo sprout growing in my ear once...a spider had alreay laid eggs.
umm.. WTF?? WTF!!
one time at band camp.............................
I'll take the warm, apple pie anyday!
He not only had a green thumb, but he had a green lung.
If he were to have slipped into a COMA, would he then have been in a "vegetative state?"
ROFLMAO
wow that old man has a cool story to tell the grandkids.
What an adorable old couple. imagine his thinking before hand, that it may be cancer. Im really happy these ppl can laugh!
Yeah, when a worm can grow in the intestine why not a plant in the lung.
I'd take a pea over worms any time. Many people have worms in their body.
...so, did the man's breath have a pea-nesy quality to it?
i like turtles
i like them too
o_O
This is just bad journalism. The article specifically says that this could only happen with uncooked peas. Why is there a picture of a can of peas? Are you trying to be funny? I would laugh if the Le Sueur peas company decided to sue you. That would be a riot.
Chew your food. How did you ingest a seed whole? By not chewing! Stop inhaling when you stuff food in your mouth. Human vacuum is irony, stop making it true.
Would love to join this conversation but it's time to water the garden growing in my head.
Hey!! Deb's a Chia pet!!
That's why your mother told you to chew your food slowly and don't inhale it like it is your last meal.
Sprout pics or it didn't happen!!
Pictures don't prove anything these days. Well... it proves people are becoming adept at photoshop. It all comes down to whether you trust the source or not...
Wheter it is a sprout or a larvae is not important here... what is important is that it looked like a sprout and it had to be removed. It could be a who knows what mutated virus... and it is its own fault that it looks like a pea, therefore it was disposed of.
Years ago when my mother was growing up in Germany during the war, her neighbors gifted her Cherries and a peach for her birthday. They told her (jokingly) if she swallowed the pits she could grow a cherry tree. She was hungry. She LOVED fruit. It seemed like a good idea. To this day she tells about how hard it was to swallow that peach pit!! While we laugh, perhaps the old natives knew something we didn't!
If it was hard to swallow, I just cant picture the other way around.
The last time a story like this popped up, something about a tree growing in a lung it was proven to be a hoax. This will likely be done here as well.
I wonder if some day pot smokers will be able to grow it in their lungs....just sayin'
got my fingers crossed!!!
that sounds like something only a pothead would dream up. lol
Maybe there was a Pea in his Pot
It was my 7th Christmas when I discovered that sticking little bits of the pine needles from the tree into my peepee I could then shoot tem out with some degree of accuracy simply by going pee a little bit...sadly I ran out of fuel after about the tenth time I tried it and the liitle bit of pine needle stayed inside my peepee. After freaking out because I coudn't dislodge the final "bullet my Mom calmly had me drink a bunch of water and eventually I was able to fire the final projectile. Years later I was diagnosed as an idiot.
Thanks for sharing. Leave the forest to the real squirrels.
A very curious child you were, hilarious story...
Now, that's organic......
Must have been a Monsanto genetically modified pea. Depopulation one pea at a time.
I ate corn for several days and cannot get rid of the infection from getting sick...It is in your sinuses and lungs.
"god has such a sense of humor" , what?? lol these people are insane!! They find GOD everywhere...
The horror...
THIS IS ALL OBAMAS FAULT!!!!
No "Bush" did it.
I KNEW IT. SOME DUMB ASS HAD TO PUT OBAMA IN SOMETHING TOTALLY NON RELATED. IDIOTS!!!!
If you don't finish your peas, one will grow in an old man's lung.
God... stories like this make me afraid to ever eat a vegetable again! Fricken plants!
He went to the doc and said, "Everytime I sneeze, it sounds like Pea-Kaaachu!"
You made me laugh!!!!
these comments r just too hysterical.
I Just Snorted All my Weed seeds! wish me luck guys! big money big money! hope its all feminized seeds.
"what you need man?"
"let me get a qtr..."
*cough, cough* "that will be $75" -my price thought about it for 10 min LOL
A cooked Legume will in fact grow into a full blown plant that can produce if nurtured. I don't know where their information comes from because i've seen it on many occasions with pinto beans
Okay, I'm buying a can of LeSeur peas and planting them to see if any sprout!
i loveit...you all are wonderful...enjoy....the ...ride....
Well, good for him, at least he's not a peaon but rather he's a peain.
The white house did it!
Probably the "Bush" white house...ha...ha...ha!
Keep it green!
i loveit..you guys arewonderfull...enjoy theride...
Well, pea (pee) on this. I am from the south and I think I would rather make love than talk about a little of a thing. Go for the biggest sprout, you can find and take a hole of it and buggy on!
Maybe he would have become a plant creature if they let it grow. He could have been a super hero...Sprout Man or something. Man, this is freaking me out. Gonna have nightmares about the sprout monster growing out in the swamp.
Yuck...I'm sorry I started reading these comments about people reporting thing growing out of here and there. TMI people!! Why do news reports like these make you feel like you have to divulge all this disgusting info??
Airborne seeds float through the air and germinate upon finding a moist landing pad. Fungi from trees have been known to proliferate the lungs of some people in the northeast. People must breathe in these tiny seeds and microscopic plant fungi all the time. My guess is the ordinary healthy immune system destroys the invading seed, preventing germination, and likewise kills any inhaled fungi. Whereas, this elderly man might have been immune compromised (perhaps due to advanced age) and his immune system didn't fight the seed as it began to grow as if in moist soil. That is why those with immune problems should wear facemasks when leaving the house.
This is gross folks. What's next? I don't want to hear about that either.
That is nothing, every Christmas my uncle Fred would pull nickles out of my ear...One year he actually got a quarter out of there. WEIRD!!
Too bad he's so ill otherwise.
- A
From my recollection, the same thing happened about 5-7 years ago where they found a plant growing in a lady's lung if I am not correct. Or maybe it is just another one of those ground hog days. Well at least it is nice to know the human body is adaptable to most things. One thing I don't remember reading, did the physicians suspect the patient aspirated the actual pea at some point which lended itself to this event?