A 6-year-old boy was rushed to hospital after he ate a burger with a wire in it.
Little Anthony was enjoying the tasty burger for dinner when the unfortunate event happened and destroyed the beautiful summer night for the Fiore family.
The little boy was taken to the hospital where it was revealed that he’d swallowed a tiny piece of metal wire bristle from a barbecue grill cleaning brush.
“It felt like a needle,” the boy told the Canadian Broadcasting Situation.
“We knew something was wrong and he was in extreme pain because he was crying. From the time we had dinner to the time we had surgery, it was about 12 hours later, because our journey started at the local hospital, and then we were transported to SickKids,” Anthony’s mother, Nadia said.
The hospital had no staff for removing the metal wire from the boy’s throat so they take him to SickKids where there were experienced surgeons for the purpose.
The surgeons operated the boy and successfully removed the wire from his throat. After that, they carried out measures to protect him from developing a throat infection from the bacteria present on the bristle.
However, Anthony wasn’t the first one to experience such an unfortunate incident. According to the surgeons, they had dealt with many similar cases some of which were even worse than this one.
“It makes a hole in the intestine and that could be life-threatening,” said Dr. Aziz Benbrahim. “We had a patient who had it in there for 2 weeks and he had severe complications and bigger surgery.”
Duff Dixon, vice-president of development at Barbecue World says we should use such brushes in which the wires are fastened around a metal backing rather than plastic or wooden brushes since they are less safe. He further adds that we should also replace the brushes as soon as they appear matted.
“These stories have been happening as long as the brushes have been around,” said Dixon.
The safest method of cleaning the grill is to avoid using the brushes all together. You can clean your grill by first lighting it and then letting it sit with closed lid. This will loosen the gunk in the barbecue, after which you can scrub it away by using a scrunched up piece of aluminum foil.
“I hope to have these brushes removed from the shelves, have them banned,” the mother said. Nadia says she came public with Anthony’s tragic event so that other people could be aware of this incident and avoid it.
The family hasn’t since barbecued anything as the poor boy is scared to eat anything off the grill now.