Twenty-seven-year-old scientist Daniel Reardon ended up in the hospital after attempting to build a device to help people ward off the coronavirus. The Australian astrophysicist was self-isolating at his home in Melbourne, when he thought: What if there were a sensor that would tell you when your hands are near your face?
It seemed like a great idea at the time.
“I was feeling a bit bored when it [the idea] came up,” Reardon told CNN. He said when he completed the project it actually did the opposite of what he intended. The sensor would buzz UNTIL he put his hands near his face.
“I had a laugh and gave up temporarily,” he said. “Then I started mindlessly placing the magnets on my face. First my ear lobes, then my nostrils – like a magnetic piercing.”
Here’s where the trouble began. When Reardon shoved a magnet up one of his nostrils, then pushed another one up his other nostril, the two magnets “pinched” his septum. Ouch.
Well, try as he did, Reardon was unable to pull the magnets out of his nose himself. So, he went to the hospital.
“The staff enjoyed it — several doctors and some nurses came to laugh at/with me,” said Reardon. “In the end, two doctors pulled at [the magnets] – one grabbing at the magnet in each nostril.”
Reardon’s medical report says that Reardon had tried to use a third and fourth magnet in an attempt to remove the first two. He ended up with three magnets up his left nostril, and one up his right nostril.
“I was in a bit of pain while they were moving the magnets and my nose — I had made it pretty sore myself,” Reardon said. “But other than that, I was laughing with everyone else.”
Cue new nickname: the Scientist with the Magnetic Nose.
CNN reports that Australia has had over 4,200 cases of coronavirus and 17 deaths.