Boy, 14, has a 3.5cm shard of GLASS removed from behind his cheekbone that had been there for a month without him knowing after he fainted and fell into a window
- The unnamed boy from Spain complained of difficult opening his jaw and eating
- Scans revealed a knife-shaped shard of glass stuck in his face by his cheekbone
- Doctors who treated him after he fainted had not come across the shard of glass
A teenager who fell into a window after fainting had a 3.5cm shard of glass removed from his face.
The 14-year-old had no idea the knife-shaped shard was there until he went to A&E complaining of difficulty and pain when opening his jaw and eating.
He explained that he had already been treated by doctors a month earlier, after he injured his face when he fainted and fell into a window.
An X-ray found an object concealed in the unidentified boy’s face, hidden behind his cheekbone. It was found to be glass from his accident.
A 14-year-old boy who fell into a window after fainting had a 3.5cm shard of glass removed from his face, pictured here in CT scans
The knife-shaped blade (pictured) had been in the boy’s face for a month undetected
The glass was discovered under the boy’s cheekbone, which is ‘a relatively rare event’
Doctors at the Virgen del Rocio University Hospital in Seville, who treated him, said a foreign object being found in this place was ‘a relatively rare event’.
At the time of his accident, he visited a different hospital where doctors had patched a 1cm (0.4inch) wound on his cheek.
And they drained a haematoma — a collection of blood that looks like a bruise — that was on his face.
But they appear to have missed what doctors at Virgen del Rocio University Hospital found after performing scans.
The boy went into the operating theatre where surgeons extracted the glass with forceps through his mouth (pictured)
A rectangular object about 3.5cm (1.4 inches) in length on the left side of the boy’s face was faintly evident a radiograph image (pictured)
GIRL HAS ‘FOUL-SMELLING’ STONE REMOVED FROM HER NOSE AFTER A DECADE
A teenage girl had a ‘foul-smelling’ nasal stone removed from inside her nose that had been slowly growing for a decade.
Doctors revealed the girl, who has not been named, had been suffering from nasal discharge and bleeding for many years.
Inside her nose doctors found what is medically called a rhinolith, which slowly develops when deposits build up over a foreign object.
In the 15-year-old’s case, a piece of mucus-covered rubber around 2cm-long was retrieved.
It had most likely got stuck in her nose as a child, the doctors in the United Arab Emirates said. However, the girl didn’t have any recollection of putting it there.
The strange growth can often go misdiagnosed, the doctors, led by Dr Mohiyuddin Ali at Ain Alkhaleej Hospital, said in BMJ Case Reports.
A rectangular object about 3.5cm (1.4inches) in length on the left side of the boy’s face was faintly evident a radiograph image.
That led doctors to order a CT scan, which confirmed a foreign body ‘which had the shape of a knife blade’ hidden behind the boy’s cheekbone.
The penetration was unusual because this area of the face is well protected by the cheekbone, the authors said in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.
The boy went into the operating theatre where surgeons extracted the glass with forceps through his mouth.
After the surgery, the boy was able to move his jaw again, and had no complications when he had a check-up six months later.
The story would have been very different had the shard of glass entered through the temporal area, the doctors said.
It could have damaged muscles and nerves that are used to open the jaw and make facial expressions.
Slashes to the neck or face from injury are not uncommon at hospital.
But only a small percentage are complicated by a foreign body getting inside, usually wood, glass, metal, plastic or stone.
Detection can take a while if the symptoms are vague or there has been no clinical suspicion. In this case, the doctors were aware the boy had fallen into glass recently.
The piece of glass, pictured in a CT scan image, had caused pain and difficulty eating
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