A 68-year-old Peruvian woman, Celia Tello, experienced a harrowing incident while enjoying pork rinds when she suddenly felt an object stuck in her throat. Concerned, she sought medical attention after vomiting blood, initially assuming she had swallowed a bone. However, the reality turned out to be far more alarming.
Doctors at the hospital discovered that the object lodged in Tello’s throat was a nail that had pierced one of her carotid arteries, crucial blood vessels supplying blood to the head and neck. Speaking to Reuters in Spanish, Tello expressed her astonishment, saying, “It never crossed my mind I had this nail or piece of wire.”
Surgeon Diego Cuipal explained the delicate procedure required to remove the nail, highlighting the risk of detaching a clot that could potentially reach the brain. X-ray images revealed the nail’s presence in her throat, prompting doctors to conduct careful dissection to extract it safely.
“We were able to isolate the affected artery and we repaired it by sectioning it and we joined a healthy artery with another healthy artery,” Cuipal said in Spanish.
Despite the ordeal, Tello has since healed from the incident, leaving behind only a prominent scar on her neck from the surgical procedure.
This incident adds to a series of cases where unexpected and hazardous objects have been found in food. Last year saw recalls due to stainless steel in peanut butter and bone fragments in smoked sausage. The FDA has cautioned that while some food contamination is inevitable, it’s often economically impractical to eliminate non-hazardous, naturally occurring defects entirely.