Beijing: A five-year-old girl in northern China was hospitalised after accidentally swallowing a 50-gram gold bar while playing at home, with doctors performing an emergency procedure to remove the object from her stomach.
The girl was admitted to Beijing Children’s Hospital on August 16 after her condition became critical. An X-ray showed that the 4-cm gold bar had become lodged in her stomach.
Gold bar posed serious health risks
Doctors said the dense and hard gold bar could have scratched the stomach lining if it remained lodged in the digestive tract. This could have resulted in severe internal bleeding or even perforation of internal organs.
Before reaching the hospital, the girl’s family reportedly took her to several smaller clinics. However, the facilities did not have the equipment required for emergency endoscopic removal of foreign objects.
The hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University said the girl was brought in in a critical condition.
Doctors remove gold bar within minutes
Doctors found the gold bar lodged in the girl’s gastric cavity, leaving limited space for the procedure. They performed an intraoperative endoscopy and used a snare to carefully grasp and remove the object.
Although the procedure took only a few minutes, doctors described it as delicate because of the location and size of the foreign object.
The girl has since recovered, with her vital signs reported to be stable.
Incident sparks social media reaction
News of the unusual incident spread on social media, with some users questioning how a five-year-old gained access to such an expensive object.
Others urged parents to keep potentially dangerous items away from children and closely supervise them.
The incident has also highlighted the potential dangers posed by children accidentally swallowing foreign objects, particularly items that are heavy, hard or capable of becoming lodged in the digestive tract.