SPARTANBURG, S.C. (WSPA) – A South Carolina man has a warning for others after he said a metal grill brush bristle left him hospitalized.
“I ain’t never felt nothing like that,” Woodruff resident Steven Cannon said.
Steven Cannon has been recovering from a rough couple of days. He told 7 News it started when he was doing something he has done many times before, grilling food.
“We were just out back grilling hamburgers. Of course, I decided to grab the brush and clean the grill off,” Cannon said.
But fast forward a couple if days. That’s when Cannon told 7 News he was experiencing some of the worst pain he has ever felt.
“Didn’t feel too good and then Thursday afternoon it got to where I couldn’t stand it. It felt just like a needle stabbing through,” Cannon said.
And after a two-hour surgery and dozens of staples in his stomach, the culprit was found. A little bristle that carved a path of destruction inside his body.
Cannon said it came from the metal grill brush he was using. He said he didn’t even feel it going down.
Emergency MD Medical Director Dr. David Brancadi said cases like this are becoming more and more common.
“What happened in this case is it created a hole, or a perforation, so that the intestinal contents were leaking into the abdominal cavity where we don’t want bacteria and we don’t want food substances,” Dr. Brancadi said.
Dr. Brancadi said if this ever happens, you need to act fast. He said the further down that piece of metal moves in your body, the harder it is to remove.
As for Cannon, he got to keep a souvenir from the whole ordeal.
“Just keep the wire brushes away from the grills because like I said, I never felt that kind of pain,” Cannon said.
A study shows about 1,700 Americans went to the ER between 2002 and 2014 after ingesting one of these bristles, that’s according to Consumer Reports. Most of the injuries were to the throat and the neck.
