[Sportschosun reporter Jang Jong-ho] A 5-year-old girl in China accidentally swallowed a 50-gram gold bar while playing at home, in a frightening incident. The gold bar became lodged in her stomach, but doctors safely removed it using an endoscope.
According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, the 5-year-old girl, who lives in Beijing, went to a hospital on the 16th after swallowing a small gold bar.
The gold bar was reportedly about 5 cm long and weighed 50 grams.
An X-ray at the hospital showed that the gold bar was still inside the girl's stomach.
Doctors determined that, unlike a small foreign object, the gold bar was hard, dense, and smooth, making it likely to get stuck in the digestive tract. If it damaged the stomach wall or the lining of the digestive tract, it could have led to serious complications such as perforation or severe bleeding.
Medical staff carefully removed the gold bar with a surgical endoscopic instrument, and fortunately the child did not suffer any major injuries.
Once the news spread, it also drew unexpected reactions online in China.
Netizens joked, "What kind of wealthy family lets a child play with a gold bar?" and also commented, "Children can swallow things in an instant" and "It's a relief she wasn't seriously hurt."
Doctors stress that incidents in which children swallow foreign objects should not be treated as simple mishaps.
Foreign-object ingestion in children is a relatively common emergency. Children may swallow a wide range of items, including coins, small metal balls, and hairpins. Depending on the type, size, and location of the object, it may pass naturally, but if it becomes lodged in the esophagus or stomach, there is a risk of organ damage or bleeding.
In particular, when a child swallows a foreign object, caregivers should avoid folk remedies such as forcing the child to drink vinegar or swallow a lump of rice to push the object down. It is important to identify what was swallowed and seek medical attention as quickly as possible.
Experts also urged parents and guardians to be especially careful to keep children from putting small objects such as coins, toy parts, and metal items in their mouths, and to store anything that could be swallowed out of reach.
Jang Jong-ho, bellho@sportschosun.com
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
