A man snapped his penis in three places after it buckled against his partner while having sex. The 36-year-old, from Tanzania, showed up at hospital with a painful, swollen and bloody member a few hours after his eye-watering injury.
He heard a loud ‘snap’ after his penis hit his partner’s perineum — the skin between the vagina and anus — at ‘very high’ impact.
Scans showed the unnamed man, whose gruesome injury was shared in a medical journal, had fractured three different parts of his penis.
Medics operated on him to patch up the ‘extremely rare urological emergency’ and he fully recovered.
The unidentified man, from Tanzania, showed up at hospital with a painful, swollen and bloody penis
HOW DOES A PENIS FRACTURE?
A penile fracture occurs when the appendage is subject to a sharp, blunt force trauma, which can occur during vigorous intercourse or masturbation.
Since 1924, 1,600 cases have been recorded worldwide — roughly 16 instances per year, the Telegraph reported in 2017.
Researchers noted that in 50 per cent of cases, a gruesome cracking sound can be heard. Four in five male victims lost their erection.
Those who have already been traumatised from breaking their penis are often left with erectile dysfunction problems and a lifetime of painful sex.
A report in 2017 revealed a man from southern China who was left in agony after breaking his penis during sex with his wife.
Doctors found that his penis was at an odd angle and was in a swollen shape that made it look like an eggplant.
He was diagnosed with a penile fracture after tearing a sponge-like erectile tissue called corpora cavernosa.
Blood flows into corpora cavernosa that runs along the penis and makes it hard during an erection.
The trick to stopping penile injuries is to thrust quite shallowly, according to sex expert Tracey Cox.
Holding your partner close to you using a grinding rather than thrusting motion will also reduce the risk, she told MailOnline.
Detailing the tale in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports, doctors said the patient attended hospital with a swollen penis.
He complained that it was painful and that he had been bleeding from his urethra — the tube that expels urine and semen from the body — for five hours.
His penis ‘slipped out, lost the way and hit the female perineal area as he was trying to re-insert it’, the medics wrote.
He quickly lost his erection and was in agony.
The patient took himself to a nearby health centre, where he was given painkillers and referred to Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre.
Urologists at the hospital, led by Dr Bartholomeo Nicholaus Ngowi said that his penis was ‘a bit twisted’, had ballooned and was covered in blood. But the rest of his genitalia appeared normal.
The anatomy of an erection is based around two spongy tubes which fill up with blood and harden, called the corpora carvenosa, and a firm, fibrous sheath which surrounds them, called the tunica albuginea.
An ultrasound scan revealed he had broken a blood vessel in the corpora cavernosa.
And an MRI showed a tear from left to right through the tunica albuginea, corpora carvenosa and corpus spongiosum, which is erectile tissue. The scan also showed that there was a partial tear through the urethra and swelling.
Despite there being no bones in the penis, these injuries are still known as a penis ‘fracture’.
The patient was rushed into emergency surgery, where a urologist repaired the fracture by ‘degloving’ the penis and stitching up both corpora cavernosum and the urethra and corpus spongiosum.
The man was discharged three days later.
At a six-month check-up, the man reported that his sex life had resumed without difficulties and his penis had returned to normal.
The medics said penile fractures alone are uncommon.
And they ‘rarely’ involve all three ‘erectile bodies’ — the two corpora carvenosa and corpus spongiosum.
Penis fractures most commonly occur during sex but can also happen during masturbation or if a man rolls over while erect in his sleep, doctors said.
The impact when the patient’s penis hit his partner’s perineum must have been ‘very high’ to cause ‘such a serious rupture’, they added.