SEATTLE — After nearly two weeks of cramping and vomiting, a Mountlake Terrace teenager finally learned what caused his illness: swallowing a bristle from a wire grill brush.
Sixteen-year-old Tristin Beck tells The Seattle Timesthat he must have swallowed the bristle when he ate a piece of chicken during a barbecue.
His mom says that as his symptoms worsened, doctors at Seattle Children’s hospital ran “about a million tests.” Finally, on Sunday night, they performed an exploratory surgery and found the tiny strand of wire stuck inside Beck’s small intestine.
Beck is expected to make a full recovery.
Experts say such cases occur more often than people might think. One was in Washington last July, when Tacoma’s Adam Wojtanowicz underwent emergency surgery because of a brush bristle.
