A 24-year-old man in the US ended up in the hospital with a ruptured bladder when he dived into a lake after consuming alcohol.
The young man's injury came to the attention of doctors at an emergency room in Maine, where he arrived complaining of severe pain after a day at a lake.
The pain had started immediately after a leap into the water, he told doctors. His abdomen was swollen and tender when doctors examined him, 'LiveScience' reported.
The man couldn't make himself pee, and a catheter inserted into his bladder revealed urine filled with blood, doctors Matthew Opacic, Janessa Leger and George L Higgins III, all of the Maine Medical Center in Portland, wrote in their report published in the journal Visual Diagnosis of Emergency Medicine.
A computed tomography (CT) scan found that the normally smooth bladder surface looked ragged - there was a rupture in the curved top, or dome, of the organ. Surgeons operated on the patient's abdomen, found the tear and stitched it up.
Most bladder ruptures occur when the organ is penetrated by something hard.
But 35 to 40 per cent of bladder ruptures are "intraperitoneal," meaning they happen when there is too much pressure on the bladder wall, Opacic and his colleagues reported.
Alcohol consumption can raise the risk of this type of injury, but so can other circumstances that lead to a full bladder and a rapid increase in pressure, said Dr Bradley Gill, a resident in urology at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved in treating the patient.
"When you drink alcohol, it causes the body to produce more urine than usual, so that can potentially contribute to the bladder being full," Gill said.
A full bladder, "accompanied by an inebriated individual being less aware of this fullness, can be a setup for traumatic bladder rupture," Gill said.
