Inside the Viral Medical Mystery: How an Experiment Led to an Emergency Knotted Cable Surgery

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Surgeons placed the teenager under general anesthesia and repositioned him in the dorsal lithotomy position. Rather than making an abdominal incision into the bladder wall, which carries a high recovery burden and risks chronic pelvic pain, the urologists opted for an approach through the perineum, the anatomical space between the scrotum and anus.

The surgeons dissected through the perineal subcutaneous tissue down to the bulbospongiosus muscle, locating the underlying bulbar urethra. By making a precise longitudinal incision directly over the palpable segment of the cable, they reached the foreign body without damaging the external urinary sphincter located further along the pelvic floor.

Once exposed, the surgical team cut the looped knot with heavy shears, dividing the tension in the cord. The knot was pulled out through the perineal incision, and the remaining unknotted lengths were extracted through the tip of the penis. The damaged urethral segment was then irrigated, repaired with fine absorbable sutures, and stented with a silicone urinary catheter to allow the mucosal lining to heal smoothly over several weeks.