In the Fiore family home, the afternoon was routine. They made the decision to light their grill and prepare hamburgers for dinner because it was a warm spring day. However, the day would quickly become a nightmare. The worst part is that, despite the incident being more frequent than you might think, it was their young son Anthony who was most negatively impacted.
Anthony was about to bite into his hamburger when he suddenly felt a tickle in his throat. Just a few seconds later, he was in agonizing pain; he told his parents that he felt like a sharp knife had been wedged in his stomach. His parents took him immediately to the emergency room. The discomfort was intensifying.
Anthony received a CT scan right away at the hospital. They then discovered a tiny, narrow metal wire entangled in the boy’s throat. The doctors thought it might have been a piece of the typical grill cleaning metal brushes.
When the piercing metal wire was removed from Anthony, it was discovered to be a bristle from a BBQ grill brush. Anthony was immediately taken to surgery.
Despite the successful operation, Anthony had not yet fully recovered. He developed an infection a few days later because the filthy piece of wire had introduced bacteria into the stomach wound. Anthony finally felt well enough to go home after receiving antibiotics. Anthony’s parents threw their grill brush in the garbage as soon as they could.
This wasn’t a first, the doctors said. While cleaning the grill, the sharp bristles frequently come off; in worst-case scenarios, they may become stuck to the grill and then transfer to the food. In his experience, some of these accidents are more serious than others, according to Aziz Benbrahim, a surgeon at MidState Medical Center in Connecticut, USA.
“The issue is that nobody is aware of the statistics. The one published paper discusses only six or seven cases, but I think it’s much, much more common,” he tells CBS News. Discover a safer method in the video below on how to clean the grill without a wire brush. To melt any lingering food particles, close the lid and thoroughly heat the grill. Next, scrub the grill with a ball-shaped piece of aluminum foil. With no risk of leaving behind shards of steel, this will remove the soot just as efficiently as a brush.
Since many people are getting ready to use these kinds of wire brushes to clean their grills as the summer barbecue season approaches, let’s help spread this doctor’s warning.
