A brush with death: British teenager claims she swallowed her toothbrush whole (and doctors can't find it anywhere)

Brush of death: A British teenager claims to have swallowed her toothbrush whole

As daily tasks go, it’s certainly not considered perilous. But for one British teenager, cleaning her teeth really did become a matter of life or death. Georgie Smith claims she feared for her life after managing to swallow her toothbrush whole. According to The Sun, the 19-year-old from Brighton felt the toothbrush slipping down her throat but couldn't do much to stop it.

It was reported that Miss Smith, a student at Guildford University, has no gag reflex. ‘I thought I was going to choke to death and was stunned when I [realised] it wasn’t stuck in my throat and I could breathe,’ she told the Sun.  Doctors allegedly told the teen that there was nothing they could do, and she should just wait for ‘nature to take care of things’.  ‘Nobody knows where it is as X-rays don’t show plastic. It could be dissolving in my intestines or may already have passed through,’ she continued.

And it seems that toothbrushes may not as innocuous as we thought.  According to the latest statistics from the Home Accident Surveillance System, there were 20 toothbrush-related accidents in the past year.  Earlier this year there were reports of an Israeli women having a toothbrush removed from her stomach. Bat-El Panker accidentally swallowed the toothbrush while leaning over the tap as she cleaned her teeth and it slipped down her throat. But when she first went to the hospital to have the toothbrush removed doctors didn't believe her as nothing showed up on X-ray or ultrasound scans.

It was eventually discovered in a CT scan and removed by using endoscopic equipment. Her doctor Dr. Uri Segel, who removed the toothbrush, said at the time: ‘The lesson learned from this incident is that with all the technology and all our experience, doctors have to listen to the patients.’ And a New Zealand teenager suffered a similar fate while brushing her teeth and running up the stairs. She tripped and fell, pushing it down into her mouth.  Her younger brother came to help stop her from choking but the gag reflex caused her to swallow the toothbrush whole before it could be pulled out. 

Source: Daily Mail UK 

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