I am eternally fascinated by people who get things stuck inside them for inordinate amounts of time. Like that person who had a pea in their nose and it GREW INTO A SMALL PLANT? Horrific. I love it. Or this Wollongong woman, who had a coin stuck in her throat for 12 years.
[jwplayer QunZUtZ4]
The story is old – from the 80s, in fact. But it’s having a resurgence thanks to the woman in question, Marie McCreadie, having written a book about her experience. To promote this she spoke to the Illawarra Mercury and hoooooooo-oooo-oooooo BOY, it is a fucking RIDE you guys.
Marie – then Marie Heffernan – lost her voice at 13. No dramas around it, nothing. She just couldn’t speak. Doctors had NO idea why – her vocal chords looked fine, so they put it down to laryngitis. Except… it didn’t go away.
In a fucked turn of events, Marie went to a Catholic school where, fun times, priests told her she was cursed.
“I was at St Anne’s Catholic school in Dapto – that’s since closed – and I remember one of the priests saying it was the ‘work of the devil’ and that stuck. I ended up leaving school at 14 as I was just too traumatised.”
Yes definitely tell a sweet teenager she’s cursed by the devil, that’ll go down well.
After 12 months at home in hiding (understandable), Marie decided enough was enough and got on with her life, getting in touch with the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES).
“First I was told to get married as I would never get a job because I couldn’t communicate. But then a nice man at the CES decided to help me, and got me into a typing course.”
I cannot with Ye Old Days – get married because you’re mute? What kind of a solution is that? Anyway, Marie got a job! She was such a fucking gun! And then when she’d JUST gotten her life back together – BAM. At 25 years of age, Marie starts coughing and a FUCKING COIN COMES OUT OF HER GOB.
Not just any coin – a 1959 threepence, which a specialist discovered had been lodged between her vocal chords (!!!), preventing them from vibrating. Because the coin was lodged horizontally in her throat, it would have been near impossible to see in an X-Ray. Hence why no one figured it out.
IT GETS WEIRDER. Marie has NFI how she got a coin in her throat – she has no recollection of swallowing one.
“The only thing we can think is that it must have been in a can or bottle of soft drink.”
IT. GETS. FUCKING. WEIRDER. A 1959 threepence?
“I couldn’t believe it – it’s still a mystery how I swallowed the coin, a threepence which wouldn’t have even been in circulation.”
W….H….A….T.
WHAT.
I’m sorry. WHAAAAT!?
You are telling me this teenager, unbeknownst to her, got an out-of-circ coin stuck in her throat in such a way that no doctors could see it? As much as I hate that shitty priest for scaring a poor teenager who just needed support, I have to agree with his belief that this was, in fact, the devil.
But like don’t tell a teenager that you asshole. Just keep it to yourself and maybe flick holy water on her a little, sneakily. Sneaky sneak holy water but SUPPORT THE POOR GIRL IT’S NOT HER FAULT.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed that fucking nutso ride – in all seriousness, props to Marie for being a Bad Bitch and ignoring that idiot’s advice about “GeT A HuSbAnD It’S YoUr OnLy HoPe” and going out to work, bitch. Bow down to this level of bossness, IMO.
THIS IS HOW YOU GET A COIN STUCK IN YOUR THROAT AND STILL NAIL LIFE, EVERYONE.
If you want to read more about Marie, I suggest the full Illawarra Mercury yarn, as well as Marie’s book, Voiceless.
