Ah, the joy of summer grilling. Just make sure that when your enjoy your burgers and kebabs, you don’t unintentionally end up needing surgery.
This is one of those freaky stories that makes a person say, “Seriously?”
According to an article on ScienceDaily, doctors at Rhode Island Hospital have identified six cases involving people who accidentally ate bristles of a wire grill brush. The patients hate eaten meat cooked on a grill that had been cleaned with a wire brush immediately prior to cooking. In three cases, the bristles had lodged in the throat and were removed. In the other three cases, the bristles ended up in the abdomen:
In two patients, the wire perforated the small intestine and in the third, the wire perforated through the stomach and into the liver, and was surrounded by a large hepatic abscess. Surgery was performed in all three patients.
Dr. David Grand, a radiologist in the diagnostic imaging department at Rhode Island Hospital, said:
“Although foreign body ingestion is not a rare complaint in an emergency department, it is striking that in only 18 months we identified six separate episodes of wire bristle ingestion after eating grilled meat. The public should be aware of this potential danger.”
If you are a grill enthusiast, make sure to check the wire cleaning brush regularly to make sure that the bristles aren’t loose, broken, or otherwise likely to shed. An added precaution is to wipe down the grill after using the wire brush.
To read the full article on ScienceDaily, click here: Danger of Grill Brushes Identified
