A video posted by a pediatric emergency room doctor has gone viral and has brought attention to an overlooked danger, sharing the story of a boy who nearly died due to a wire from a grill-cleaning brush in his food.
Doctors sounds alarm about grill-cleaning brushes getting wires in food
This cautionary tale is something many people don’t think about when cleaning their outdoor barbecue grill. But several doctors are sounding the alarm to remind us all of the dangers that grill-cleaning brushes pose, especially those made with wire, and how often the brushes shed and wind up in food.
Grill wires in food get swallowed, causing internal injuries
Fragments or wires from grill cleaning brushes lead to all kinds of medical emergencies creating injuries in the mouth, throat, esophagus, oropharynx (throat and tonsil area), and other areas of the digestive tract, including the bowels. In addition to the abscesses, cuts, or tears they may cause, they also often cause infection. Further, they are often extremely difficult for surgeons to remove.
“If the wire is embedded, it can be like a needle in a haystack,” Dr. David Chang, vice chair of otolaryngology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, told BuzzFeed News. “You may have to dig in, get past the carotid artery, and fish through muscle and space to get where you need to go.”
Symptoms of grill-cleaning brush injuries
Grill-brush wire swallowing incidents are frequent enough that it is something doctors consider during emergency room examinations.
Typically, there is instantaneous pain after swallowing, according to Doctor Chang, adding that if the wire is metal, it should show up on an x-ray or CT scan.
“Patients say it can feel like a fish or chicken bone,” said Dr. Yomna Nassef, an emergency physician in New York City and spokesperson for the American College of Emergency Physicians. “If it has moved down to the esophagus or stomach or intestinal tract, you might have really bad pain.”
High number of grill wire incidents
The dangers of grill-cleaning brushes are well-known to those in the medical field. Doctor Chang did a study that explored the incidence of injuries linked to grill-cleaning brushes. He found there were nearly 1,700 such emergency room visits occurring between 2002 and 2014, BuzzFeed News reported.
Four-year-old nearly dies from swallowing grill-cleaning brush wire
A viral video posted on TikTok has had more than 34 million views and is a stark reminder of the danger of grill-cleaning brushes and the deadly risks they pose.
Meghan Martin, a Florida pediatric emergency medicine physician known as Beachgem10 on TikTok, shared a video this week, sharing what she called “one of the most interesting cases,” which involved a 4-year-old boy who came to the emergency room complaining of intense ear pain following a backyard barbecue, People reported.
Initially, doctors were unable to determine the cause of the boy’s discomfort.
“He had a totally normal air exam,” Doctor Martin said, adding the boy was discharged home.
Two days later, still in pain, the boy had a visit with an ear, nose, and throat specialist (ENT), who also couldn’t determine a diagnosis to explain the pain.
The parents took the boy back to ER, where he received a CAT scan, which also netted no result.
However, ten days after the initial complaint, the boy was taken for a third ER visit with a fever and no appetite. Doctors then performed a full slate of tests, which included a more extensive CAT scan.
This time, the CAT scan identified a two-centimeter wire lodged in his peritonsillar tissues, where an abscess had started to develop around it.
“We ended up seeing a small foreign body in the neck that was a grill brush wire and it had created a little abscess around itself because it was a small foreign body in the neck,” Dr. Martin told GMA in an interview. “We consulted the ear, nose and throat surgeon who was able to remove it successfully and the kid recovered beautifully.”
Doctor Martin said the boy had eaten a hamburger at the barbecue and swallowed metal wires from a grill brush that had gotten lodged in the meat.
Doctor Martin’s advice: “Do not use grill brushes with metal wires.”
