Talk about a real chokehold.
This past May, a man got a 2-inch plastic pastry topper lodged in his esophagus after consuming a Mother’s Day cupcake at breakneck speed. He didn’t even notice it until a week later when doctors pulled up a CT scan showing the peculiar appendage clinging to the inside of his throat.
The 60-year-old unnamed man had initially gone to a Baltimore-area hospital emergency room, complaining of throat pain, but was sent home when X-rays failed to uncover anything. However, he decided to report to the ER at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for a second look after experiencing a fever, sore throat and the sensation of something stuck in his gullet, according to a report published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.
A CT scan revealed an object in his throat, but the doctors were unable to make out what the object was. So they performed an upper endoscopy — a throat examination involving a thin, camera-fitted tube. The inspection discovered a “pink foreign body” covered in food particles, which had ripped his throat lining.
After repairing the tear, they removed the topper, which was inscribed with the words “Happy Mother’s Day.”
For the doctors, it was no laughing matter. Throat tears caused by foreign objects can prove fatal for 18 percent of patients. And the man spent four days in the hospital due to problems swallowing food.
Still, he’s a lot luckier than this Queens grandma who had to be fed through a tube after her accidentally-ingested dentures “chewed” through her esophagus.