An Australian woman is warning other parents about a cleaning tool for barbecues after her nine-year-old daughter almost died after eating a bacon and egg roll. Kristen Saunders from Newcastle shared on social media that her nine-year-old daughter was served the sandwich at a venue in July. Along with the food, she also swallowed a small wire-bristle from a barbecue brush. 

The barbecue brush pierced her daughter’s oesophagus and pushed into the carotid artery in her neck, reported ABC News. 

Ms Saunders told ABC News, “She was munching away, then she started to feel like she was choking.” She added, “I think like most parents, we’re we’re like, ‘You’ll be fine, have some water, it’ll settle down’.”

The family thought a visit to the doctor would resolve the problem. The visit revealed she had a high temperature. The girl struggled with a sore throat and had difficulty eating solid food. Her condition improved and even took part in the school athletics carnival. 

But more symptoms started to appear. 

“There was this one particular day I was at home with her and all of a sudden she was a bit confused answering questions,” Ms Saunders told the media outlet.

“I was like, ‘Hang on, there’s something really problematic here’ and called the GP – she [said to] go straight to the hospital.”

The girl was stumbling, disoriented and unable to recognise her family. “They identified that there were some abscesses in the brain,” Ms Saunders said.

“They ended up at the last minute doing a CT and identified there was this tiny bit of wire, sort of near her neck.”

She was flown to Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney. 

“The next day we realised it was pretty serious – there was a major infection in one of her arteries,” she said.

“They had to replace it and there was a risk of all these different things, so that was pretty awful.”

The surgery was successful and she had a phenomenal recovery. “She actually had a phenomenal recovery, considering what it could have looked like and how it could have ended up, and she’s doing really well now,” Ms Saunders said.

“She’s off all her antibiotics, she’s back to school, she’ll be back to sport soon.

“It could have been a lot worse.”