Woman Glues Mouth Shut Not Realizing Lip Balm Was Actually Super Glue

A New Zealand woman was at a loss for words recently because she accidentally glued her mouth shut.

The Otago Times reports that a 64-year-old Dunedin resident made a terrible mistake the other night. While she was fumbling through her medicine cabinet in the dark for cold sore cream, she didn’t realize that she’d actually grabbed super glue.

Having a bad cold, the woman couldn’t detect by smell that she was applying glue and not medicated balm to her lips until it was too late. She quickly realized her mistake, but at that point her lips were already glued together, and she couldn’t open her mouth.

That didn’t keep her from calling emergency services, however. Police Sergeant Steve Aitken said the woman "sounded gagged or possibly had a medical condition,”adding,"She could only grunt.''

The woman told the Telegraph, "The communication was 'Do you live in Dunedin?' and I grunted 'mmm', and then the lady went through all the suburbs and then all the streets. She was very, very patient. I had to tap on the phone, one tap for no and two taps for yes, and then it took a long time to narrow down the streets and then all the numbers too."

The woman was eventually taken to the hospital, where the glue was removed with paraffin oil. The patient, no doubt feeling sheepish, has requested the police be tight-lipped about the matter, and not reveal her name to the press.