He tried to retrieve a ball only to lose another.
A 16-year-old boy from Utah suffered the strangest of accidents after one of his testicles retracted inside him while he was trying to pick up a golf ball.
A case study detailing the adolescent’s scrotal mishap was recently published in the journal “Urology Case Reports.”
According to the cringe-worthy account, the young man had felt a “sharp” pain in his groin as he “bent over to retrieve a golf ball” from the green.
When the teenager inspected his nether regions, he was horrified to discover that his left genital was not in its usual place.
Alarmed by the shocking disappearance, the horrified golfer presented himself at a Salt Lake City hospital, where he reported feeling “continuous mild abdominal pain with persistent nausea.”
Doctors administered painkillers to the patient and tried to find out what happened to his family jewel.
A subsequent CT scan revealed that the ball was thankfully intact, but had gone far off course.
The rogue testicle had ended up in the canal that runs from his scrotum, almost to his abdomen, in a condition known as “testicular ascent.”
After reviewing the patient’s medical history, doctors discovered that he had suffered from a retractable left testicle since he was 11 years old.
This affliction occurs when a boy’s testicle descends normally during puberty, but doesn’t stay in place, often traveling “back and forth between the scrotum and groin,” the Mayo Clinic reported.
In the case of the Utah teen, she had a condition known as a leaky processus vaginalis that she had suffered from since she was in the womb.
In the normal fetal cycle, the testicles begin to develop within the abdomen before descending into place, after which the genital incubation chamber is sealed off, the Daily Mail reported.
Occasionally this pocket does not close, forming a highway between this region and the scrotum known as the patent processus vaginalis.
When the golfer leaned over to pick up his ball, the errant testicle theoretically could have returned to its place. However, doctors were skeptical that this is how he scored his accidental hole-in-one.
Fortunately, surgeons were able to guide it back into the scrotum using tiny surgical instruments, a process hampered by the “size of the testicle.”
After retrieving her ball from the ruff, the doctors sealed the vagina. They then anchored the testicle in her place with a suture to prevent further ascents.
