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American Morning

Utah Man Hiccuping for Eight Months

Aired April 18, 2001 - 09:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All of us have the occasional hiccups, right? But imagine having these hiccups not occasionally, but all the time.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: This has turned out to be a way of life for a Utah man.

Ed Yeates of our affiliate station KSL in Salt Lake City shows us what this man is going through.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SETH DOWELL, PHARMACY TECHNICIAN: Prescriptions for Flovent, $110.

ED YEATES, KSL REPORTER: Pharmacy technician Seth Dowell calls doctors and nurses to okay prescriptions. After eight months of hiccupping, people on the other end know who he is almost immediately.

On his worst days, Seth can hiccup almost every 20 to 30 seconds.

DOWELL: I'll hiccup all through the night. Sometimes I can't get to sleep because I'm hiccupping so bad. So you just stay awake. There's really nothing you can do.

YEATES: First impression is feel sorry, but Seth says he doesn't want your pity, but your laughs, because that's the way he wants to deal with his predicament until it ends.

JUDY ANDERSON, COLLEAGUE: It doesn't even phase me anymore. It's just kind of blended into every day. He's got the tighten abs in town, so I guess that's good for the girls.

YEATES: But Seth says his hiccups turns dates off. On the last one he remembers, his hiccuping forced him to leave a movie.

DOWELL: I can't take them out and go to the movies because I hiccup through the whole movie, and I don't want to ruin it for everybody else.

YEATES: Customers and colleagues all recommend their own remedies, and Seth has tried them all.

DOWELL: Cover your ears, drink a full glass of water, put a paper towel over a glass of water and drink it through that, stand our head and drink a glass of water.

YEATES: A teaspoon of sugar -- the list goes on and on.

(on camera): Even doctors here at St. Mark's have been trying to find a way to turn off Seth's hiccups. They ran a CT scan: neurologically, physically, so far, everything looks normal.

(voice-over): Until they find an answer or the hiccups just go away, everybody knows where Seth is all the time.

And for Seth?

DOWELL: I don't know what I'd do if I stopped hiccupping. It's just like getting up in the morning. It's hiccups.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: That poor guy. He could never sneak up on somebody.

KAGAN: That's true. That and hide-and-seek.

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