14-year-old boy in danger due to accident while eating and drinking water

(Dan Tri) - A boy had an unexpected accident while eating, putting his life in danger because a foreign object punctured his intestines.

Informing Dan Tri reporter on June 9, Dr. Ho Tran Ban, Deputy Head of General Surgery Department, Children's Hospital 2 (HCMC) said that recently, doctors here discovered and provided emergency treatment for a case of a child choking on a dangerous foreign object.

That was the case of NDH (14 years old, living in Tay Ninh province), who was hospitalized on June 1. According to the family, 2 days before being hospitalized, the child sat down to eat, picked up a toothpick, then went to the refrigerator to pour water to drink and accidentally swallowed the toothpick.

At the local hospital, the doctors performed an endoscopy and found no foreign objects, so the child was sent home to take medication and monitor. However, when the child continued to have severe abdominal pain, the family became worried and took the child to a higher-level hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.

Baby H. at the hospital (Photo: Hoang Le).

At Children's Hospital 2, initially, ultrasound doctors did not see any foreign objects, but noted that the baby had intestinal gas, a mild infection in the blood test, continued abdominal pain and fever.

At this time, the doctors ordered the patient to have a CT scan, which showed a long, sharp foreign object with one end penetrating the intestinal wall. The patient was diagnosed with peritonitis and required emergency surgery.

During the laparoscopic surgery, the medical team noted that the foreign object was a toothpick that had penetrated the intestinal wall into the abdominal cavity, containing intestinal fluid. The foreign object was removed and the perforation was sutured. On the 8th day after surgery, the baby's health was stable, the wound healed, the fever had gone, and he was discharged from the hospital.

Endoscopic doctors remove a toothpick from a child's stomach (Photo: Doctor).

Doctor Ban shared that if detected and intervened late, the baby will be at risk of complications of septic shock, or damage to surrounding organs such as the liver, spleen, stomach, causing intestinal obstruction, internal bleeding and endangering life. The danger is that the foreign object is not radiopaque, so X-rays and ultrasounds may not detect it.

Usually, toothpick swallowing accidents often occur in children aged 1-4, who are hyperactive and unaware of danger. If family members do not closely monitor them, they can easily get into danger.

According to statistics, each year Children's Hospital 2 receives 5-6 cases of toothpick swallowing accidents, in addition to other foreign object swallowing accidents such as hair, nuts...

Choking on sharp foreign objects can cause dangerous complications (Illustration: Hoang Le).

Doctors warn that parents should not let their children play with toothpicks or other small, sharp objects that are easy to swallow; always closely observe children when they are eating and living, especially during the summer when children are at home.

Previously, on May 24, Children's Hospital 2 also received a boy named B. (12 years old, living in Binh Duong province) with left abdominal pain and fever lasting for many months.

According to the family, the baby started showing symptoms of left abdominal pain and fever in January. When he was admitted to the local hospital, the doctor discovered that the baby had fluid accumulation around the spleen.

The patient said he had a strong impact while swimming, and suspected trauma, so he was diagnosed with a spleen injury and treated conservatively. When he went for a follow-up examination at another hospital, the ultrasound doctor found that there was still a little fluid around the spleen, so he prescribed medication for the child to take and continued to monitor him at home.

In May, the patient suddenly had a high fever again with severe abdominal pain, and had to be admitted to the emergency room. At Children's Hospital 2, during an ultrasound examination, doctors discovered a sharp foreign object about 7cm long in the patient's abdomen.

A 12-year-old boy in Binh Duong swallowed a toothpick (Photo: BV).

After consulting with the Surgery Department, the patient was scheduled for emergency endoscopic surgery. The foreign object, a toothpick, was removed, shocking the child's family.

At this time, the patient's family said that the child had a habit of eating quickly and not chewing thoroughly, so he may have swallowed the toothpick without knowing it. Currently, the child's health is stable.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/suc-khoe/be-trai-14-tuoi-lam-nguy-vi-tai-nan-khi-vua-an-vua-uong-nuoc-20250609101244764.htm