Doctors in Yexian county, Henan province, recently removed 10 meters of plastic tubing from the stomach of a man who devoured the pipes in an apparent attempt to relieve mental pressure.

The 56-year-old man, surnamed Cao, began to swallow plastic tubes three years ago when he became desperate from his poverty and failure to land a job after his parents had died.

The first time he gorged on a 30-centimeter plastic tube. He was a little worried at first but became relieved once he thought it had been digested. He then ate the second tube after suffering another setback in job-hunting.

On March 18, he ate a 2-meter rubber tube after folding it in half. When he developed a stomachache and couldn't walk four days later, he went to the hospital.

"His stomach was swollen with the tubes. It took us three hours to take the tubes out," said the doctor in charge of the case.

Cao was astonished to know there was so much tubing in his stomach.

"I will never do it again," he said.

He is recovering and will leave the hospital soon.

(China News Service)