American teenager injects himself with mercury to get X-Men superpowers

A 15-YEAR-OLD boy in America injected himself with mercury in the hope of gaining X-men superpowers

A medical report issued by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, based in Bethesda, Maryland, in the United States has revealed how a 15-year-old teenager tried to fulfill his dream of developing superpowers and becoming an X-Men character, by voluntarily injecting several doses of mercury taken from a thermometer, into his arm, “to become a Marvel superhero in real life”, specifically, the character of Mercury or Quicksilver, luckily though, doctors were able to extract it before he was poisoned.

“We present the case of a 15-year-old boy, who, inspired by a movie, deliberately injected mercury subcutaneously into his forearm, causing the formation of an ulcer that did not heal”, they explain in the report, adding, “A surgical procedure was performed to treat the ulcer and reduce mercury levels in the blood and urine. However, the patient did not develop clinical signs of chronic poisoning, demonstrating that subcutaneous injection of mercury has a low risk of systemic toxicity”.

A psychiatric report shows that this was not the boy’s first attempt to become a superhero, going on to explain that he had previously forced spiders to bite him, in the hope of turning into Spider-Man, “Surprisingly, he had no other psychiatric problems and had a normal IQ”, they concluded.

As a spokesperson for the National Centre for Biotechnology Information points out, these are dangerous practices, and sometimes a doctor might not be able to help you, or arrive in time, yet in the case of the teenager, psychological reports were favorable, and no abnormality was recorded.

Using this case to draw conclusions on the effects of mercury, they said, “In recent years, several studies have been published on the misuse of mercury that causes poisoning. As far as we know, this study, however, is one of those that analyze the histopathology of skin biopsy with subcutaneous injection of mercury”, as reported by cadenaser.com.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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