Indian baby swallows knife worn around his neck to ward off evil spirits

A protective knife worn around a baby’s neck to ward off evil spirits was a source of harm to the baby instead of protecting him.

The six-month-old baby, Dev Thakor, swallowed the knife by accident while he was feeding from her mum breast. Dev had been wearing the knife on a string around his neck as a local tradition in India.

According to the toddler’s father, Bharat Thakor, the baby suddenly started crying and screaming, which prompted the family to observe him and noticed that something had gone wrong. After they noticed that the knife was missing, Dev Thakor was quickly rushed to the hospital where an x-ray confirmed that he had swallowed the penknife.

After neighbours and customers of Bharat Thakor who is a tea stall owner contributed some money, surgeons operated on the boy and fortunately retrieved the knife from the boy’s stomach.

“It was a critical case as the knife was lying open in the upper part of Dev’s stomach and could have harmed the Mucosa - the inner part of his body - but fortunately he was remarkably not injured,” Chief gastroenterologist at Apollo Hospitals where Dev was operated on, Dr Shravan Bohra, said.