3-Year-Old Child Swallows Metal Figurine While Playing, Miraculously Survives Accident

A 3-year-old child miraculously survived after swallowing a nearly 2-inch-long figurine while playing with it at his house in India.

The boy reportedly suffered severe pain in his upper chest and had difficulty swallowing saliva, following which he was rushed to a hospital. The incident took place Friday in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru. Doctors at the Manipal hospital said that the child could be saved as his family did not waste any time to bring him to the facility, News 18 reported.

Local media reported that the metal figurine was that of a Hindu God. At the hospital, a chest and neck X-ray was performed, which confirmed the presence of a type of foreign body. Doctors then planned to remove the idol using a flexible endoscopic approach. The child was taken to the endoscopy suite within one hour and, under anesthesia, the foreign body was safely removed.

During the procedure, the doctors pushed the object from the food pipe to the stomach and removed it.

“Directly removing the idol from where it was stuck would have caused injury to the food pipe. In such cases, we try to avoid sharper objects in the food pipe. The throat is a very complex structure with a food pipe, windpipe and blood vessels. Hence, we pushed the object down to the stomach, reversed its position and pulled it out through endoscopy,” Dr Srikanth KP, pediatric gastroenterologist at the hospital, told The Times of India.

The boy was kept under observation for a few hours before being discharged. He was put on feed after four hours of the procedure.

Pediatric gastroenterologist Dr. Srikanth K.P. told local media the idol could have caused injury to esophagus if it was not immediately removed. It could have led to perforation of esophagus, including infection in the chest. The parents' timely action in noting the incident and rushing the child to the hospital was very crucial, doctors said.

Dr. Srikanth also said if the foreign object had been big or abnormal in size then his team would have had to conduct a surgery. Doctors who performed the procedure on the boy warned parents against keeping tiny objects with the reach of children at home.