A one-year-old boy has undergone surgery after he swallowed part of a metal binder clip.

The incident happened while Xiao Xingxing, who is 21 months old, was playing in his home in the city of Changsha in the Chinese province of Hunan on 6th April.

Although the boy appeared to be having fun, he suddenly started crying. His mother said she at first thought he had swallowed a cookie and started patting him on the back.

But as he did not get better, they wondered if he might have swallowed something else, and it was then that his gran suddenly noticed there was a U-shaped iron wire missing from a metal binder clip.

The mother took the boy to the local hospital, where, after the CT examination it showed high-density shadows in the 2nd to 4th thoracic vertebrae.

Due to the risk of the surgery, the boy was taken to Hunan Children’s Hospital on 7th April.

The doctors, after the necessary examination, performed an esophagoscopy and the foreign body removal under emergency general anaesthesia.

During the surgery, the metal wire that was 2 centimetres long and 1.8 centimetres wide was successfully taken out.

The boy is currently in good condition.

According to professor Zhao Sijun, parents need to educate their children accordingly to their age and advise them not to put small objects in their mouths since they can be easily swallowed.

He added that in case a foreign object is swallowed, people should not try methods at home to remove them, but instead, they should immediately go to the hospital so doctors can remove the object through surgery.