For 68 years, an Iowa man suffered from a condition most people shake off in minutes. Charles Osborne of Anthon, Iowa endured nonstop hiccups for nearly his entire adult life, earning the record for the longest continuous hiccup attack ever documented. His struggle lasted until shortly before his death in 1991.
Osborne’s ordeal began in 1922 after he took a fall while trying to hang a large hog on a farm near Union, Nebraska. The seemingly minor accident triggered a lifetime of involuntary spasms that averaged 20 to 40 hiccups a minute. By the end of his life, he was estimated to have hiccupped 430 million times. Even decades later, doctors remained uncertain about the cause, suggesting a ruptured blood vessel in the brain or possibly an injury to his ribs or diaphragm.
He traveled long distances searching for relief, visiting doctors in Nebraska, Illinois and Minnesota. A Mayo Clinic physician briefly stopped the hiccups using a mix of carbon monoxide and oxygen, but the treatment was too dangerous to continue. With no safe cure available, Osborne was forced to endure the condition. In a 1978 interview he admitted, “I’d give everything I got in the world if I could get rid of them.”
Living with constant hiccups proved overwhelming. Osborne described the pain as relentless, and the condition caused exhaustion and severe insomnia. Eating solid food became difficult, and he eventually blended most of his meals. He also developed a unique way of breathing and speaking that hid the sound of the spasms.
His condition brought him national attention. He appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records and on the Ripley’s Believe It or Not radio show, Johnny Carson and That’s Incredible! Despite his notoriety, friends remembered him as a cheerful man who rarely talked about his struggles.
In 1990, at age 96, Osborne’s hiccups stopped without explanation. He lived one more year before passing away, having built a full life marked by resilience, family and unimaginable endurance.
This article is from Little Village’s December 2025 Peak Iowa issue, a collection of stories drawn from Hawkeye State history, culture and legend. Browse dozens of Peak Iowa tales here.
