Boy loses testicle while bending over to pick up ball: study

He tried to retrieve a ball only to lose another.

A 16-year-old Utah boy met with the freakiest of accidents after one of his testicles retracted inside him while he was trying to pick a golf ball.

A case study detailing the teen’s scrotal mishap was published recently in the journal “Urology Case Reports.”

According to the wince-worthy account, the young man had felt an “acute” pain in his groin while “leaning over to retrieve a golf ball” from the green.

When the teen inspected his nether regions, he was horrified to discover that his left testicle was not in its usual spot.

Alarmed over the shocking disappearance, the aghast golfer reported to a Salt Lake City hospital, where he reported feeling “ongoing mild abdominal pain with persistent nausea.”

Doctors administered painkillers to the patient and attempted to discover what happened to his family jewel.

A subsequent CT scan revealed that the ball was fortunately intact, but had traveled way off course.

The wayward testicle had ended up in the canal running from his scrotum, nearly into his abdomen, in a condition known as “testicular ascent.”

After reviewing the patient’s medical history, doctors discovered that he suffered from a retractile left testis since he was 11.

This affliction occurs when a boy’s testicle descends normally during puberty, but doesn’t remain in place, often traveling “back and forth between the scrotum and the groin,” the Mayo Clinic reported.

In the case of the Utah teen, he had a condition known as patent processus vaginalis that he’d been suffering from since he was in the womb.

In the normal fetal cycle, the testes begin to develop inside the abdomen before descending into place, after which the genital incubation chamber seals up, the Daily Mail reported.

Occasionally this pocket doesn’t close, forming a highway between this region and the scrotum.

When the golfer bent down to pick up his ball, the errant testicle could’ve theoretically boomeranged back into place. However, medics were skeptical that this is how he scored his accidental hole-in-one.

Thankfully, surgeons were able to guide it back into the scrotum using tiny surgical instruments — a process that was hindered by the “testis size.”

After retrieving his ball from the ruff, doctors sealed up the vaginalis. They then anchored the teste in place with a suture to prevent any future ascensions.