When you ’re a small fry , you want to investigate pretty much everything you’re able to by any means usable . You ’re a curiosity powerhouse , poking around at things , chewing on others , and sometimes trying to eat stuff . According to an extraordinary suit discipline , published inBMJ Case Reports , one particular four - year - old in Saudi Arabia decide to “ investigate ” a bobby pin tumbler by swallowing it , which went on a strange escapade through his consistence and ended up piercing his kidney .
By the fourth dimension his parent bring him to the medical center at KAMC - JD , National Guard Health Affairs in Jeddah , they informed doctors that he had been suffer piercing painful sensation in the upper proper section of his abdomen for around three calendar month , and he ’d also been receive a pyrexia and chills . They informed the stave there that one medico previously name the boy with a urinary nerve tract infection ( UTI ) and yield him antibiotic , but the male child ’s condition had barely improved after he finished the course of medicine .
After being admitted to another medical quickness , an XTC - ray unwrap the honest case of his abdominal woes : A bobby pin appeared to be lodged into an surface area in his abdomen . Caught red - handed with grounds of his digestion - based erroneous belief , the child fink in front of his discombobulate parent that he had indeed swallowed the hair clip .

At KAMC - JD , a CT scan break the precise position of the pin : It was charge in his correct kidney . oddly , he ate the bobby pin about a month before he began showing symptoms , suggesting that the small add-on went on quite the journey around his digestive system of rules before reaching his good kidney .
The ends of the pin had respond with the or else acidulous and alkaline digestive fluids within the boy ’s consistency , causing it to rust and become incredibly sharp . The two - inch - long rowlock managed to get as far as the upper section of the small intestine – the duodenum – before getting stuck . The sharp oddment pierce it , reaching through and spearing the right kidney .
A specializer registrar at Charing Cross Hospital , London ( who like to stay anonymous ) distinguish IFLScience that the case was particularly unusual . " The kidney is quite far back in the abdomen , so the peg must have been push out by the natural rhythmical movement of the gut at a very weird angle . "
Kids frequently turn over up in hospital wards after swallowing object , includingsmall magnets . One on its own would perish through the digestive pamphlet , but two will try and pull towards each other and potentially rive through parts of the intestine . Perhaps most oddly , a 16 - month - honest-to-god boy in Saudi Arabia earlier this year managed to immerse his sister’sSpongebob Squarepantstoy , with his big grin and his tongue sticking out viewable on the X - ray .
After a successful military operation to take out the stick , the son has made a full recuperation without any further complications . " The perforation ( bout ) would have been quite diminished , so I ’m not surprised that he turn out amercement ; these thing normally seal off themselves , " the registrar add .
figure credit : The full abdominal X - ray . BMJ 2015