Peru doctors save toddler who swallowed 8 medical needles

Peru doctors save toddler who swallowed 8 medical needles
Hospital X-ray of needles lodged inside two-year-old boy, which surgeons later removed in surgery.
PHOTO: San Martin Regional Government

LIMA — Doctors in northeastern Peru saved the life of a two-year-old boy who had swallowed eight injection needles while playing.

"It was once we were in the operating room and we opened up his abdomen that we found those metal pieces, (and realised) they were really needles," Dr. Efrain Salazar said.

Local media reported that the needles were used to vaccinate farm animals where the boy's mother works.

The boy, whose name was not revealed, lives in agricultural area of Taratopo, some 622 kilometres from capital Lima.

"Maybe he swallowed them when he was there playing," the boy's mother said.

The boy's life was not at risk following surgery, local media added.

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