Man in India dies after choking on goat’s eye during village picnic
A 50-year-old man in a small town in central India died earlier this week after he choked on a half-cooked eye of a goat.
The police said Mr Bagar Singh was at a picnic with his friends at a village in Chhattisgarh state, some 1,000km east of New Delhi, when he died, The Times of India reported.
The newspaper said investigations showed that he and his friends first went to a temple where goats are sacrificed in exchange for wish-fulfilment. There, they bought the head of a goat.
They then went to a village on the outskirts of Surajpur district, where they reportedly had a picnic.
Mr Singh already had too much to drink when he picked up the goat’s eye, even before it was fully cooked.
He swallowed the eye – which was about 5cm in diameter – and choked on it.
His friends took him to a hospital 7km away, where doctors there declared him dead on arrival.
“The half-cooked eyeball, around two inches in diameter, got stuck in the respiratory pipe, choking the respiratory system. It might be the main reason behind the death,” Dr Swapnil Gupta was quoted by The Times of India as saying.
“Moreover, the man was drunk, which leads to respiratory depression,” he added. “During respiratory depression, the likelihood of food getting choked in the respiratory pipe is high if the food is not chewed properly.”
Dr Shailendra Gupta, an associate professor at the Ambikapur Government Medical College, said a goat’s eye has the consistency of jelly and can easily stick to the muscles of the respiratory pipe.
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