A Chinese man will be keen to wet his whistle after a small plastic instrument (not this one) is finally removed from his body after 15 years!

A lot of people lament ‘not having a musical bone in their body’. Well, it could be worse, you could actually have a musical instrument in his body.

That was the case for a Chinese man who, for a staggering 15 years, had a whistle lodged in his body.

Liu Yougang, 23, swallowed the tiny woodwind instrument at the tender age of nine. He told the Chengdu Commercial Daily that at the time the doctor could not find the whistle. Subsequently, two thirds of Liu’s life has consisted of restricted breathing and regular coughing fits, while those who slept within ear shot of him had to endure night after night of shrill whistles while he slept.

Finally, after 15 years wrapped in the tissue of one of his airway passages, Liu decided enough was enough and opted to go under the knife to have it removed and last Monday (3 March) doctors at the West China Hospital in Chengdu dislodged the whistle.

The musical device was inhaled by the enthusiastic whistleblower back in 1999. Perhaps he became over zealous in his rendition of then chart topping hit ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys or perhaps Britney Spears’ more upbeat number ‘…Baby One More Time’? We can only speculate. What Liu did say after the operation was that the relic from the last millennium was so badly broken down that he has no keepsake from the procedure, should he have wished to have one more toot on the mini-flute.

While Liu breathes a long-awaited (silent) sigh of relief, children everywhere will be thankful that recorders remain so indigestibly cumbersome.