Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report   

These images show a metal pen cap in a young girl’s lung after she accidentally inhaled it and then developed a cough with three weeks passing before she was taken to hospital.

The seven-year-old girl from the city of Xiangyang, which is in Central China’s Hubei Province, is said to have been chewing on her ballpoint pen when the 0.8-inch front ink cap came loose and she sucked it into her windpipe by mistake.

According to the First People’s Hospital of Xiangyang where she was treated, the girl’s parents work in another city for higher pay while she lives with her grandfather.

She told her grandad about the accident on the day it happened, but he did not think much of it, the hospital said on 3rd January.

The girl then developed a cough which lasted three weeks, with the grandparent eventually taking the child to hospital.

The facility administered medication for the girl’s symptoms, which included a chronic cough as well as a fever, but her condition did not improve.

She was transferred to the paediatrics ward, where Doctor Yang Wu ordered scans which revealed the metal cap in one of her right bronchi.

The young patient underwent a bronchoscopy under general anaesthesia, and images show Doctor Yang removing the stationery piece using a pair of forceps.

The girl is expected to make a full recovery.

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