A nine-year-old girl almost died because of a little-known danger hidden in her bacon and egg roll, and her mother wants parents to know about it so it doesn’t happen again.
Kristen Saunders wrote on Facebook that her daughter had swallowed a piece of wire from a brush used to clean barbecues, which was in the bun she bought at a local sausage restaurant.
“The wire punctured her esophagus and was then pushed into the carotid artery of the neck,” the mother from Newcastle, NSW, wrote of her girl, whose name she has withheld.
The injury was so severe that the child had to be flown by helicopter from John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle to Westmead Hospital in Sydney.
Her daughter underwent “major vascular and cardiothoracic surgery, then aspiration of brain abscesses and then another six weeks of IV antibiotics.”
A nine-year-old girl (pictured) almost died because of a little-known danger hidden in her bacon and egg rolls, and her mother wants people to be aware of it so it doesn’t happen again
Kristen Saunders wrote on Facebook that her daughter swallowed a piece of wire (shown in an x-ray) from a brush used to clean barbecues, which was in the roll purchased at a local restaurant
Mrs. Saunders told the ABC Newcastle radio station how the near-tragedy unfolded. She said her little one “was chewing, and then it started to feel like she was choking.”
“I think like most parents, we say, ‘You’re going to be fine, have some water, it will settle down,’” she said.
She later took the child to the doctor, but the problem was not found and the Grade 4 student – still with a sore throat and difficulty eating solid food – took part in her school’s athletics carnival.
But shortly afterwards her condition deteriorated.
“There was one particular day I was at her house and suddenly she was a bit confused answering questions,” Ms Saunders said.
The wire (pictured) pierced her esophagus and was then pushed into the carotid artery of the neck
Kristen Saunders said her daughter (pictured) has made a ‘phenomenal recovery’ from the terrifying ordeal
‘I thought, “Wait a minute, there’s something very problematic here” and called the GP – she (said) go to hospital straight away.’
By the time they arrived at John Hunter Hospital, she was stumbling, disoriented and couldn’t even recognize her own family.
“They identified there were some abscesses in the brain,” Ms Saunders said.
“They did a CT at the last minute and found there was a small piece of wire, kind of near her neck.”
She realized it was “pretty serious.”
“There was a serious infection in one of her arteries,” she said. “They had to replace it and there was a risk of all these different things, so that was pretty terrible.”
But fortunately the operation in Westmead went well.
“She’s had a phenomenal recovery, considering what it could have looked like and how it could have turned out, and she’s doing really well now,” the mother said.
‘She is off antibiotics, she is going back to school and will start exercising again soon.
“It could have been a lot worse.”
After a terrifying experience, Ms Saunders has some advice for other parents, urging them to ‘protect your family and friends’ and throw away the wire brush cleaners.