World-renowned sword swallower and San Diego resident, Scott Nelson, AKA "Murrugan The Mystic" is recovering from an incident that almost took his life. While attempting to swallow five swords during a performances at Six Flags America in Washington D.C., Nelson, lost control of the swords, causing horrifying injuries throughout his body. Now that he's on the mend, Nelson showed his injuries to a news crew and needless to say, he's lucky to be alive.
"I was performing at [Six Flags in Maryland] and I swallowed five swords at once," Nelson said. "But what had happened is I let go of the bunch too soon and they scissored out inside of me. Which means some of the blades went in different directions." Remarkably, it took about 15 minutes for him to really start feeling the effects of the incident when it became hard to breathe and he knew something was very wrong, "I knew I was in big-time trouble ... I really thought I was going to die,” said Nelson.
Nelson was rushed to the hospital and although the swords were dull at the point they were still anywhere from 24" to 28" long and half an inch wide and easily able to cut through tissue and muscle. Two of the swords penetrated Nelson's esophagus all the way through. One nicked his liver, and the other perforated a lung. After mulitple surgeries to repair the damage, Nelson was placed in a medically induced coma for close to a month.
His surgical team didn't think he would make it, but Nelson defied the odds and is planning on performing again once he has healed completely. While Nelson plans to return to the stage to perform stunts like eating light bulbs and lying on a bed of nails, he says he's given up sword swallowing, “I won’t be swallowing any more swords. I can never put my mother through this, ever, ever again.”
Nelson is looking on the bright side as he recovers, "Good news is, I've quit smoking and lost over 50 lbs."
Nelson is incurring significant medical and travel expenses during his recovering, and a Gofundme campaign has been started to help him out.