Cleaning your grill with a wire brush can be dangerous, as one Wallingford woman learned in 2015.
Cheryl Harrison was rushed to MidState Medical Center in Meriden in extreme stomach pain two days after eating a hamburger containing a wire bristle from a barbecue grill brush. A CT scan revealed the bristle, about an inch long, in her digestive tract. Doctors removed the bristle in an emergency laparoscopic surgery.
“Anyone who has abdominal pain which does not go away the next day or so, if it’s severe, should not dismiss it,” Harrison’s general surgeon, Dr. Aziz Benbrahim, told CBSNews.com.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 80,000 people, mostly children, visit the emergency department each year after accidentally swallowing a foreign object. No data is available on the number of emergency-department visits related to ingested bristles from a grill brush.
“When I was talking to my colleagues at the hospital,” Benbrahim said. “I was surprised that all of them had at least one or two patients like this. I didn’t think it was that common.”
If you experience abdominal pain for an extended period, call your primary care provider or visit your nearest hospital emergency department. If you’re in extreme pain, call 9-1-1.