Doctors Find Grass Growing in Babies Lung

Mr. Han, from Zhoukou city in China, was worried about his 10-month-old daughters health. She was diagnosed with Pneumonia but was not recovering.

The Hostpital at Zhengzhou University checked out the girl and diagnosed her with a rare complication of pneumonia called Pyopneumothorax.

 Doctors Find Grass Growing in Babies Lung picture

After numerous treatments the little girl was still not improving so the doctors decided surgery was the only option. However surgery revealed something even the doctors had never seen before.

“We were surprised to find a 3cm piece of grass growing on the baby’s right lung,” said chief surgeon Li Qun.

Mr. and Mrs. Han claim that the grass is the same kind growing outside of their home and the doctors determined that the baby must have inhaled some grass seed into her lungs. The seed, finding the environment suitable, started to grow.

They removed the grass and the little girl’s health improved and she recovered from her illness.

(Ananova)

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36 Comments »

Comment by _
2007-09-26 12:29:40

poor kid

 
Comment by Trish
2007-09-26 12:50:41

Scary

 
Comment by J
2007-09-26 15:02:50

Can we please make it a habit to cite sources going forward? That would make the story much more credible.

Comment by Sun Tzu
2007-09-26 21:43:02

Um.. there is a source..

 
Comment by D
2007-09-27 11:47:09

“going forward?” Jeez, you must be a middle manager. That particular phrase of buzzspeak makes my stomach turn. Just say “in the future” you sound like much less of a douche. BTW, Where are my TPS reports?

Comment by AyeRoxor
2007-09-27 17:00:17

I believe you have my stapler…

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Comment by Bill
2007-09-28 08:29:12

You are clearly not getting with the program, this is a BLOG. And according to Internet law, anything that appear on a BLOG is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!

Comment by God
2007-09-29 08:49:01

I don’t exist. Go reavaluate your life.

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Comment by Trish
2007-09-26 15:38:28

Hey all, acording to my medical resources, Pyponeumothorax is not a recognized medical problem! In fact, the only referances to the condition lead back to this page. What in Hades name did they do to this little girl?

Comment by bloggo
2007-09-27 10:23:55

pyopneumothorax: collection of pus in the space formed in between the surface of the lung and the inside of the chest wall. Somehow there must have been air leaking into this space from the lung tissue itself secondary to the pneumonia. Treatment usually surgical, to drain the pus. Sources: various medical books.

 
 
Comment by gee-man
2007-09-26 19:49:46

Wow, that’s gotta suck. Just imagine what would’ve happend if it had continued to grow.

Comment by Jimi
2007-09-27 03:28:40

I don’t even want to imagine that. That would have turned into some major pain if it would have kept growing.

 
 
Comment by charlie
2007-09-26 22:00:30

Uhmmmm… grass = chemoautotroph = Needs sunlight to run photosynthesis = cell growth… yeaaah… dark lungs = no sunlight…

Comment by Jarandhel
2007-09-27 13:07:12

But does it need sunlight to sprout from seed? Seeds are usually capable of sprouting while buried, which presumably means no light is reaching them.

Comment by Yacker
2007-09-30 15:11:48

But they said it was 3cm long.

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Comment by me
2007-10-26 06:47:53

ever heard of cellular respiration? next time get ur facts stright before spouting crap.

 
 
Comment by mzerach
2007-09-27 06:31:27

Hybrid grass that escaped from a genetics lab, from where the chinese are developing a method for their soldiers to get an oxygen boost under combat situtaions or when under water. The grass converts the CO2 to O2 at 1:5 ratio allowing the soldiers to increase endurance and hide under water for many hours.

Comment by ryan
2007-10-03 14:01:35

haha.. well played

 
 
Comment by Paul
2007-09-27 06:36:38

Grass, as most plants require photosynthesis to grow/stay alive. Photosynthesis requires sunlight…direct sunlight. Basically the story is biologically impossible to be real.

Comment by Jarandhel
2007-09-27 17:01:06

But does it need sunlight to sprout from seed? Seeds are usually capable of sprouting while buried, which presumably means no light is reaching them.

 
 
Comment by dyingtoknow
2007-09-27 11:35:10

a photo of the grass when it was still in the lungs would make this story more real …

 
Comment by johnww2
2007-09-27 13:11:43

For those amateur scientists who declare grass seed cannot grow without light:

How do seeds underground manage to grow enough to pop out of the soil?

The goal of a seed is to contain enough energy and enough protection to survive a harsh environment until it changes to a warm moist one. Then the seed uses the stored energy to begin to grow enough that it can deploy a large enough surface area to begin photosynthesis.

It is totally possible for this to occur in a lung. Sure, after the initial growth, lack of light would probably lead to a short life for the sprout, but even if it dies it continues to be a foreign body irritating the lung tissue.

 
Comment by onewhoknows
2007-09-27 16:56:34

Somebody (I would suspect from the author on down) has been smoking waaaayyyy too much “grass” :-)

 
Comment by starfire
2007-09-27 23:21:41

seeds sprout with no sunlight but they need watera nd sunlight to drow, clearly the grass in her lungs was getting both the question is how?

or perhaps the question should be is the story completely unreal

its pretty amazing if its not made up

 
Comment by jason
2007-09-28 01:43:32

A grass seed doesn’t contain much nutrients (vs a mango/durian seed) doubt it can reach 3 cm as claimed in the article without sunlight

Comment by John
2007-10-03 13:35:26

If it couldn’t reach 3 cm in length without sunlight how would any grass grow? That’s the average size, from the root on up, of the sprout of various breeds of long grass. Keep in mind that plants go into the ground, hiding a part of them. The little blade would have died shortly, but it can get to that size.

 
 
Comment by Jimmy Willis
2007-10-03 15:11:16

Lies, grass needs sunlight to grow. Duh

Comment by me
2007-10-26 06:52:22

no it doesnt. plants can grow using cellular respiration ( they breath in oxygen and put off carbon dioxide) . its used when sunlight is not available you dumb shits need to go back to school.

 
 
Comment by Solanum Tuberosum
2007-10-08 14:15:11

About the gras and light thing: Grass doesn’t need light to GERMINATE! It can sprout some just on it’s own internal resources. However, in order to keep on growing, it needs light. It would probably wither up and die if it didn’t get any light for more than a week. It would probably be really hard to get any light in your lungs too, so I think the grass either just died, or it was going to die soon.

 
Comment by Jason
2007-10-08 21:31:06

I find it funny how people don’t seem to bother to read even the first and last comment before making a post…

“If it couldn’t reach 3 cm in length without sunlight how would any grass grow? That’s the average size, from the root on up, of the sprout of various breeds of long grass. Keep in mind that plants go into the ground, hiding a part of them. The little blade would have died shortly, but it can get to that size.”

“The goal of a seed is to contain enough energy and enough protection to survive a harsh environment until it changes to a warm moist one. Then the seed uses the stored energy to begin to grow enough that it can deploy a large enough surface area to begin photosynthesis.

It is totally possible for this to occur in a lung. Sure, after the initial growth, lack of light would probably lead to a short life for the sprout, but even if it dies it continues to be a foreign body irritating the lung tissue.”

“But does it need sunlight to sprout from seed? Seeds are usually capable of sprouting while buried, which presumably means no light is reaching them.”

etc

 
Comment by mike
2007-10-09 13:28:30

How about this for a rebuttal:

The girl in the photo is Jessica Zhao, child of Junwei Zhao of Stanford University.

link:

http://sun.stanford.edu/~junwei/jessica6.html

she is 1yr, and 3-6mo old in that photo. She lives in California.

I know nothing in the article claims that the picture is of the grass-lung girl, but I think a picture in article usually insinuates it.

Comment by beeurd
2007-10-17 18:22:15

well, I wouldn’t call Ananova a particularly reliable source anyway… so, yeah. lol

 
 
Comment by buyusediphone.com
2007-10-15 15:31:29

if you don’t consider how it can be scientifically interesting the only thing to say is ‘poor girl’…

 
2007-10-18 18:40:03

u suck ppl

 
Comment by Anz
2007-10-22 22:39:37

could it be that her parents had sex in the garden and accidentally input a piece of grass to the embryo.. :D

Comment by brooke eriss
2008-03-21 11:59:58

u r… ur…. ur disgusting!!!!!!

 
 
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