Reverend Richard Coles’ burger-van burn is just one of a string of jaw-dropping sex injuries, from broken bones to rare love-bite blood clots, ‘vacuum’ kiss deafness and other A&E horrors
From red-hot burger van blunders to freak love bites and even a kiss that allegedly left someone temporarily deaf, sex injuries can be as jaw-dropping as they are painful. Reverend Richard Coles has admitted he once burnt his hand mid-hook-up after accidentally planting it on a sizzling burger griddle.
But he’s far from the only one with a bedroom horror story. Actress Leslie Ash nearly lost the ability to walk after a romp left her hospitalised and she contracted MRSA.
Doctors have also documented rare cases involving blood clots triggered by a hickey, sudden hearing loss linked to intense “vacuum” kissing and an orgasm that wouldn’t stop.
Here are the most shocking – and common-sense-defying – sex injuries:
Vehicle burn
Reverend Richard Coles once burnt himself while having sex in a burger van, he confessed this week. The Church of England priest recalled the sizzling hookup from the days before he joined the clergy.
The injury happened when his hand accidentally touched the hot burger griddle during the encounter. While navigating the cramped space inside the burger van, he reached out to brace himself and placed his hand directly onto the cooking surface, which was still hot from a busy night shift.
Despite the painful burn, he jokingly recalled that it didn’t completely ruin the mood, and the burger vendor quickly treated the burn using frozen burger buns to cool it down.
Superbug MRSA
Actress Leslie Ash suffered devastating consequences after cracking two ribs during a romp with hubby Lee Chapman. She was rushed to hospital after the 2004 accident, where she contracted deadly superbug MRSA and was almost left permanently unable to walk.
Penis pieces
A model has admitted to breaking her lover’s penis and taking a “chunk out of it” when a horrifying sex mishap sent her dashing to A&E. Influencer and model Ana Nello has left her 1.2 million Instagram followers gobsmacked after revealing how an erotic encounter with a “hot army boy” took a painful turn.
“So, this hot army boy that I was hooking up with hit my IUD and it like ripped a chunk out of his c***,” she explained. Read the rest here.
Internal bleeding
Top adult star Alina Lopez, said: “No more big d***s. I can’t be a size queen anymore.
“The last time I shot a scene with a guy with a really big penis I ended up in the hospital, I had internal bleeding.”
Blood clot
A hickey – often called a “love bite” – can turn dangerous in extremely rare cases. That’s because the neck isn’t just skin and muscle: it’s home to some of the body’s most important blood vessels carrying oxygen straight to the brain.
Experts say the main concern is the carotid arteries, which run up either side of your neck and sit fairly close to the surface. If a love bite is especially forceful – intense suction, heavy biting or repeated pressure in the same spot – it can, in theory, damage the inner lining of a blood vessel.
That kind of injury can trigger the body’s repair response, where a blood clot forms at the site. In 2016, 17-year-old Julio Macias Gonzalez, from Mexico City, reportedly died after suffering a stroke that was linked to a “love bite” from his girlfriend, the Sun reported.
It’s believed the hickey, given earlier that evening, may have triggered a blood clot which later travelled to his brain. Paramedics were called out, but despite their efforts Julio could not be revived and he died a short time later.
Eardrum damage
In a freak set of circumstances, a kiss can lead to sudden deafness, doctors have warned. The shock injury isn’t caused by noise, but by air pressure: an abrupt, extreme change that can damage the delicate eardrum in seconds.
At the back of the throat sits a small passage called the Eustachian tube, which connects the nose and upper throat to the middle ear. Its job is to balance pressure on either side of the eardrum – the same reason your ears “pop” on a plane.
The problem can happen if someone creates a powerful “vacuum” during forceful kissing. Back in 2008, a woman in her 20s from China’s Guangdong province reportedly went to hospital after suddenly losing her hearing.
She told doctors the only unusual thing she could think of was a very passionate goodbye kiss with her boyfriend the previous day. The hospital said the kiss was believed to have lowered air pressure in the mouth, creating a suction effect that pulled on the eardrum and led to the damage.
Stuck nerve
Climaxing can set off powerful shifts in nerves, muscles and blood flow, and in unusual circumstances those changes can tip into a medical emergency. In one case, a woman called Liz said she ended up in A&E after suffering an orgasm that wouldn’t stop, lasting for hours.
Medics believe it may have been linked to a condition known as Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder (PGAD), where increased blood flow to the pelvis and overactive nerve signalling can leave the body “stuck” in a heightened state.
Eye bleed
In a separate case reported by medics, a man from Southampton suffered a sudden eye bleed during sex – a condition known as Valsalva retinopathy. Doctors say it can happen when someone strains or holds their breath at the point of climax, triggering what’s called the Valsalva manoeuvre.
That action causes a sharp spike in pressure inside the chest, which can then transmit through veins into tiny, fragile blood vessels in the eye.
Foreign body appendicitis
This happens when something swallowed ends up triggering a dangerous infection. Doctors say most indigestible objects pass straight through the body without causing harm, but in this rare case a fragment became trapped in exactly the wrong place.
According to a case report in the Journal of Medical Case Reports, a 26-year-old woman had accidentally swallowed a condom during oral sex around two weeks earlier after it slipped. The latex reportedly broke up as it travelled through her digestive system, and she later passed some fragments – leading her to believe the issue had resolved.
But one remaining piece is thought to have lodged inside her appendix. With the outlet blocked, fluids and bacteria built up inside the pouch, causing the organ to swell and become infected.
Urethral stricture
An extremely risky practice doctors refer to as inserting a foreign object into the urethra – sometimes known as “sounding” when it’s done for sexual reasons, can lead to an emergency. According to the Sun, a man from Italy used a strand of uncooked spaghetti to insert it into his urethra.
The danger, doctors say, is that the urethra isn’t a rigid tube: its muscular walls can tighten and move, especially during stimulation. That pressure can cause something like dry pasta to snap while it’s still inside.
Once broken, the spaghetti can splinter into jagged fragments. Those pieces can become lodged in the channel, and because the urethra is so tight, it may be impossible to flush them out naturally by urinating.
At that point, the situation can escalate from pain and blockage to internal tearing and infection. The internal trauma and inflammation triggered heavy scarring as the body tried to heal, which then narrowed the passage – a serious complication known as urethral stricture (stenosis).
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.