A teenage boy injected himself with lethal mercury in a bid to be like his favourite X-Men superhero.
The 15-year-old boy reportedly wanted to emulate the superhero Mercury from the Marvel world, but instead just ended up with painful ulcers that refused to heal.
In a different barmy scheme he allowed spiders to bite him in a bid to become like the iconic Spider-Man.
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In the comics Mercury’s body is composed of a non-toxic metal resembling mercury, which she can reshape or solidify at will.
The unusual case was written up in a report in the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, which revealed the injuries suffered by the unnamed child after he deliberately injected mercury into his body.
He visited a trauma centre in India with “multiple non-healing ulcers on the left forearm”.
Medics suspected that substance abuse may have been a factor so carried out a psychiatric evaluation. The teenager revealed he had intentionally injected himself with mercury he had managed to extract from a thermometer at least three times.
The report says that the boy was “inspired” by the character Mercury from the X-Men franchise who has appeared in a number of comics.
It added: “Interestingly, he had a past history of multiple bites by spiders to simulate Spider-Man. Surprisingly, he had no other psychiatric problems and had a normal IQ.”
Doctors carried out toxicology examinations to check for mercury levels in the teenager’s blood.
He had managed to miss all the major blood vessels while injecting the mercury, but the ulcers needed to be cut out and he had to undergo a skin graft.
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