Pearl in Man's Ear for 41 Years

Pearl in Man's Ear for 41 Years

Wright had been carrying a pearl from one of his mother's necklaces inside of his ear canal for 41 years. An emergency room nurse discovered the bauble when Wright went to St. Mary's Hospital earlier this month with an acute case of bronchitis.

"At first she asked if I used Q-tips," Wright said of the nurse who examined his ears and admonished him for sticking things in his ear.

When she tried to remove the white mass with tweezers, however, she discovered it was hard and round, not soft and cottony.

"She said, "I think it's a pearl," Wright recounted.

The pearl got stuck in his right ear when Wright was 5 and roughhousing with his sister, Regina. The family lived in Chicago at the time.

"She had broken my mother's pearl necklace," Wright said. "I can remember (our baby sitter) picking them up off the floor - except for two, of course."

Regina stuck those two missing pearls - either by accident or because kids do weird things - into her older brother's ear.

Pearl in man's ear for 41 years.