Man who drank liquid nitrogen that blew up his stomach says he won’t touch alcohol now

The 30-year-old man has given up alcohol after spending nine days in hospital and undergoing a surgery in which his perforated stomach had to be stitched to his small intestines.

It’s been two months since the fateful night when a drink topped with liquid nitrogen left a Delhi man with a gaping hole in his stomach. He has not touched alcohol since.

It has taken the man two months to recover from the surgery in which nearly half of his stomach had to be removed. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

“I have given up drinking alcohol since that night. I now realise I should not have had the drink without knowing what was in it,” says the 30-year-old.

It has taken him two months to recover from the surgery in which nearly half of his stomach had to be removed.

“After the surgery, I was fed intravenously and could not eat anything for four days as the doctors did not want leakages. After that, I was on a liquid diet for two weeks,” he said.

“We had to gradually increase his food intake because there were chances of leakages and infection where the stomach was connected to the intestine. He will have a higher risk of ulcers because a valve in the lower half of the stomach that prevents bile from entering had to be removed and his stomach is now awash with bile,” said his surgeon Dr Mriganka S Sharma, who did the surgery at Columbia Asia Hospital in Gurugram.

He was in the hospital for nine days and it took him around a month to go back to normal diet.

Just two drinks had damaged his stomach and intestines so badly that his basic body parameters — blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturation — went haywire. His lactic acid level had shot up due to oxygen deprivation and he needed ventilator support to breathe.

“As the tear was massive, a portion of the middle and the lower part of his stomach had to be removed to connect it to the small intestine,” said Dr Amit Deepta Goswami, the minimal-invasive surgeon who did the surgery. The doctors say that following the surgery he had lost some weight but he looks fully healthy now.

The doctors say that though he has regained previous level of body activity, the incident has left him susceptible to stomach ulcers. He has also been advised to stay off spicy food.

The doctors explain that once he ingested the liquid

“After he swallowed the liquid nitrogen, there was no space for the expanding gas , which perforated his stomach and intestines. While evaporating liquid nitrogen also freezes everything around, which tore the tissues around ,” said Dr Goswami.