Timely intervention saves 1-year-old girl from Maharashtra who swallowed sharp hairpin

Kalyan: Timely intervention saved a 1-year-old girl who swallowed a sharp hairpin that got stuck in her throat.

The child, Pragya Vishwakarma, was playing at her home in Kaka Dhaba in Kalyan East when she put the hairpin in her mouth. As the pin got lodged in her throat, she started having breathing difficulty.

Her family immediately rushed her to the nearby private Janaki Global Hospital for treatment. Doctors first sought an X-ray scan that showed the hairpin dangerously stuck in her throat. “The pin had sharp ends and could have proved fatal if not removed in time,” said the doctors who performed non-invasive endoscopic procedure.

A team, led by Dr Ganpati Kini and Dr Jitendra Gupta, sedated the child and used an endoscopic probe to remove the pin. The child’s condition stabilised after the procedure and she was discharged after a day’s observation on Thursday.

The doctors have appealed to parents to keep small and sharp objects away from young children to prevent such dangerous incidents.

Worldwide, ingestion of foreign objects remains one of the common reasons for children to be taken to emergency ward of hospitals. A recent study in the US showed that more than 50,000 cases of foreign body ingestion in children younger than five years were reported in 2022. “Most ingestions occur in children aged sic months to three years. The majority of cases are witnessed and occur within the home. Mortality remains low overall,” the study concluded.