Doctors at a hospital in Jilin, China recently reported one of their most bizarre cases yet – a woman who had gotten her hand stuck in her boyfriend’s mouth while trying to film a funny video.

Clips and photos of a couple walking into the emergency room of a hospital in Jilin Province have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media. The premise doesn’t sound very intriguing but what really attracted people’s attention was that the woman had her hand in the man’s mouth. Apparently, they had tried to shoot a funny video to post online in which they tried to see if the woman’s hand was small enough to fit in her boyfriend’s mouth. She managed to stuff her fist in his mouth just fine, but when she tried to pull it out, his mouth muscles stiffened and the hand became stuck. After repeatedly trying to pull out her hand from the man’s mouth, the young woman decided that they needed medical attention.

Doctors were obviously baffled by the couple until they heard their story. The woman said that her boyfriend’s face gradually turned red and all her efforts to yank her hand free from his mouth were useless. He drooled continuously because he couldn’t close his mouth and his throat made a gurgling sound. To make matters worse, his teeth clamped down on her wrist because of his contracted muscles.

“Saliva ran down my wrist to my elbow,” the woman said “It felt like my hand was stuck in a meat grinder.”

 

Doctor Zhang Mingyuan, who handled the case, said the girl’s hand got stuck because her boyfriend’s jaw muscles had contracted, preventing him from opening his mouth. This created a dangerous cycle: the more pain, the tighter he clenched his jaw. To solve the problem, hospital staff first tried to calm the patients and prevent the man from choking or vomiting by playing soothing music, and then used a special mouth opener to expand his jaw enough to inject a muscle relaxant in a specific area.

After about 20 minutes, Doctor Zhang gently rotated the girl’s wrist, taking advantage of the sliding properties of the jaw joint to finally unjam it. He later presented the case as a cautionary tale, warning people that forcing a person’s jaw open can cause nerve damage or the dislocation of the jaw. We would add that you should not jam your fist into someone’s mouth, just to make sure.