HOUSTON — A pleasant barbecue turned into an uncomfortable experience for a Houston boy when a small piece of a metal grill brush became stuck in his throat.
Allyson Kopel told KHOU she was grilling some chicken Wednesday for her 12-year-old son, Zach, and his friend. But something was wrong after he ate dinner.
When the pain did not go away, Kopel took her son to an emergency room, where an X-ray revealed a tiny fiber made of steel, KHOU reported.
“Whenever I swallowed, it really hurt," Zach told the television station. “I didn’t know what it was, I thought maybe it was a chicken bone. But it got in my throat, and it just stuck there.”
“It was just a freakish sort of thing, I thought, I wonder if a bristle fell off?" Kopel told the television station.
>> South Florida couple grilling steaks loses townhome when flames engulf building
Her theory was confirmed when doctors pulled the wire from Zach's throat and found a tiny bristle from a brush she had used to clean the barbecue grill before cooking.
"Thin as dental floss, sharp as a tack on both ends, tiny," Kopel told KHOU. "Crazy that something that small could send you to the ER for so long."