SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -- A team of San Francisco-area doctors detailed the case of a 47-year-old man whose attempt at eating ghost peppers caused a rupture in his esophagus.

The Journal of Emergency Medicine case report, authored by Dr. Craig Smollin and his team, said the man was participating in an eating contest at a San Francisco restaurant when he wolfed down a hamburger topped with ghost peppers, which have more than twice the heat of habanero peppers.

"To our knowledge, no significant adverse effects of ghost pepper ingestion have been reported," the case report's abstract states.

The man suffered severe vomiting and dry-heaving after ingesting the peppers, leading him to be admitted to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center.

Doctors discovered the man had suffered a 1-inch rupture in his esophagus, which allowed food debris and air to end up inside his chest and collapse one of his lungs.

Smollin said the esophagus rupture resulted from the man's body's reaction to the spicy peppers. He said the team decided to author the case study because the incident was a very rare occurrence.

"There are many people who have ghost peppers and most people don't develop any type of severe symptoms," Smollin told The Los Angeles Times.

The patient was fitted with a gastric tube and sent home after 23 days in the hospital.

"This case serves as an important reminder of a potentially life-threatening surgical emergency initially interpreted as discomfort after a large spicy meal," the study authors wrote.

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