2023-06-18 23:33:31
Peter Kirkegaard, a former Calgarian who has lived in Terrace, BC, for 10 years, began feeling unwell in early June after eating barbecued moose.
After three days of vomiting and diarrhoea, the 60-year-old went to hospital where doctors thought it was a virus. The anti-nausea pills did not work, so he returned to the hospital two days later, but again was only prescribed vomiting pills.
His condition worsened. High blood pressure and an erratic heartbeat added to the difficulty eating.
On the third visit to the emergency room, his wife demanded an X-ray which revealed the presence of an object in Peter Kirkegaard’s small intestine: a small wire from a barbecue brush.
A simple metal barbecue brush can land you in the hospital
Photo : CBC
[Le fil] was pushing against my pancreas, so it was going to do even more damage, he says. If my wife hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened?
Doctors had to open his abdomen to retrieve the intruder.
“It’s a hell of a scar, but I wasn’t born yesterday. »
— A quote from Peter Kirkegaard, injured by wire hair
One thing is certain, Peter Kirkegaard now refuses to eat any barbecued food if he does not know how it has been cleaned. Don’t use those metal things, he advises.
Peter Kirkegaard harvested 22 surgical staples from his abdomen to dislodge the wire he had unknowingly ingested.
Photo: Tabatha Kirkegaard
New standards for this type of brushes were established in December 2019. Warning labels must accompany the product and manufacturers must do tests to reduce the risk of the metal wires coming loose.
Between April 1, 2011 and July 14, 2022, 38 cases of injuries related to the ingestion or inhalation of brush bristles and requiring an emergency room visit were recorded in the Canadian Hospital Information and Tracing System in injury prevention. More than a third of these injuries led to a hospital stay.
Health Canada recommends regularly inspecting the barbecue brush and grates and changing wire bristle brushes each season. Other cleaning tools without iron bristles are also commercially available.
With information from Jonathon Sharp
1687234554
#stitches #abdomen #barbecue #brush