Aussie schoolgirl 'lucky to be alive' after bacon and egg roll mishap
The little girl was munching away when she suddenly felt like she was choking.
An Aussie mum has warned other parents of a little-known danger that left her daughter fighting for her life after eating a bacon and egg roll at a sausage sizzle.
Kristen Saunders said that her daughter, whose name hasn't been revealed, ingested a small wire bristle from a barbecue brush while she ate her breakfast in July. The wire pierced her oesophagus and pushed into the carotid artery in her neck.
"She was munching away, then she started to feel like she was choking," Ms Saunders told ABC Newcastle Breakfast.
At first, the mum brushed off the girl's complaints of a sore throat and difficulty eating solid food.
"I think like most parents, we're like, 'You'll be fine, have some water, it'll settle down'," she said.
The Newcastle girl even competed in a school athletics carnival.
Young girl doesn't recognise family
But more serious symptoms started appearing and the mum said "all of a sudden she was a bit confused answering questions", Ms Saunders said. Phoning the GP, the mum was told to go straight to the hospital.
It wasn't long before the young girl was stumbling, disoriented and unable to recognise her family.
"They identified that there were some abscesses in the brain," Ms Saunders said. A CT scan revealed a piece of wire lodged near her neck and the next day she was suffering a major infection.
"We realised it was pretty serious — there was a major infection in one of her arteries," she said. "They had to replace it and there was a risk of all these different things, so that was pretty awful."
Thankfully, the surgery was a success and the girl remained in the hospital for a month. Ms Saunders said her daughter has had a "phenomenal" recovery and is back at school.
"She's off all her antibiotics, she's back to school, she'll be back to sport soon," she said. "It could have been a lot worse."
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