Children are curious by nature. But an 11-year-old boy in China was likely too curious, so much so that he decided to swallow a gold bar that weighed 100 grams. The boy had to be hospitalised, where doctors tried safe and easy ways to remove the gold bar from his body. However, when nothing helped, they had to perform surgery, which took only half an hour. 

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Modern Express reported that the incident happened in Jiangsu province in early April. The boy swallowed the gold bar and later informed his parents that his stomach felt swollen. His parents took him to the Suzhou University Affiliated Children’s Hospital, where he underwent a thorough check-up.

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An X-ray was done, which revealed a high-density metallic object lodged in the boy’s intestinal tract. The doctors decided to use medicines to help remove the object naturally since the boy did not present severe symptoms. They gave him medicines to induce diarrhoea. 

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They waited two days for things to change, but that didn't happen. Another X-ray was performed, which showed the object was still in the same place. Doctors started worrying about the object triggering further issues, such as the rupture of the intestinal tract. 

Gold bar was removed after surgery

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Taking no chances, the doctors performed an emergency surgery. They wanted to avoid large incisions and so chose the endoscopic foreign object removal technique. Two surgeons operated on the boy, and the gold bar was extracted in just half an hour.

The boy recovered quickly and, within two days, was able to return to a normal diet. He did not have any other symptoms linked to the lodging of the gold bar either. 

Social media users could not imagine an 11-year-old boy ingesting an item like a gold bar that is solid. One of them joked that for him, swallowing pills was hard enough, let alone a gold bar.

Another said, “Did he think it was a chocolate bar?”