Neighbors always joked about 36-year-old Sanju Bhagat’s large belly, asking if he was “pregnant.”
Little did they know — what they mocked was closer to the shocking truth than anyone could have imagined.
A lifetime of embarrassment
Some stories are so bizarre you have to stop and ask yourself: could this really be true? This is exactly what happened when the case of Sanju Bhagat, a 36-year-old farmer from Nagpur, India, came to light in 2006.
For decades, Bhagat lived with a stomach so large it made him look nine months pregnant. He struggled to breathe and had always felt self-conscious, teased mercilessly by neighbors who joked about his “pregnancy.”
Living with such an unusually large belly was, of course, an enormous social burden for him.
But in June 1999, what had been a lifetime of embarrassment suddenly turned life-threatening. Bhagat was rushed to Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, where doctors initially suspected he had a massive tumor pressing against his diaphragm.
”To my surprise and horror…”
”Because of the sheer size of the tumor, it makes it difficult [to operate]. We anticipated a lot of problems,” explained Dr. Ajay Mehta, the surgeon who operated on him.
But what happened in the operating room shocked everyone.
As Mehta began the surgery, gallons of fluid poured out. And then something else, that no one could have expected.
”To my surprise and horror, I could shake hands with somebody inside,” Dr. Ajay Mehta said. ”It was a bit shocking for me.”
Other medical staff described the scene in disbelief: limbs, hair, jaws, and even parts of genitalia emerged as they carefully explored Bhagat’s abdomen.
Inside Bhagat was a partially formed human being. After further examination, the doctors confirmed what nobody suspected: Bhagat had been living with his twin trapped inside him his entire life.
The condition, called fetus in fetu, is one of the rarest medical abnormalities in the world, with fewer than 90 cases ever recorded.
Fetus in fetu occurs early in twin pregnancies when one fetus envelops the other.
The “host” twin grows normally, while the trapped twin survives by leeching off its sibling’s blood supply. While a fetus in fetu is technically “alive” in the sense that its tissues are still living and functioning like normal cells, it can’t survive like a regular fetus.
Without the proper support from a womb, placenta, and amniotic sac, it can’t fully develop. Usually, both twins do not survive until birth, making Bhagat’s survival for 36 years nothing short of extraordinary.
Bhagat himself never wanted to see what was removed.
”He didn’t want to see it because it was looking very ghastly,” Mehta said.
Sad update after post-surgery
Thankfully, the surgery immediately ended Bhagat’s pain and breathing issues.
Doctors hailed the case as a true medical miracle and Bhagat’s story continues to amaze the world. As mentioned, a fetus in fetu is an extremely rare condition, happening in about 1 in 500,000 births, according to a report published in The Medical Journal of Australia.
At the time the story broke, Bhagat was reported to be healthy and living a normal life. But the teasing from neighbors hadn’t completely stopped — and, of course, that must have been painful to hear.
”They still ridicule him. What they say is, you went for an operation and you had the baby,” Mehta said.
In my opinion, Bhagat should be celebrated for surviving such a rare medical miracle and for enduring this condition with incredible strength for so many years.
Since 2006, there have been almost no updates on Bhagat’s life, but reports say he was born in 1963, which would make him 62 today.
We can only hope that he’s alive and well!
Feel free to share this incredible story with your friends so they can be inspired and learn something new today – after all, expanding your knowledge is never a bad thing.
