"It Was Terrifying": Eating Yogurt When Her Dog Jumped... Bizarre Accident of Swallowing a 17 cm Spoon

Medical staff remove spoon through endoscopy

A Belgian woman in her 20s who was relaxing with her pet dog ended up in a terrifying situation when she accidentally swallowed an entire metal spoon measuring 17 cm.

According to reports from foreign media outlets including The Mirror on the 4th (local time), Remy Amelinks (28), who lives in Belgium, was recently sitting on a sofa eating yogurt when she put the spoon in her mouth to reply to a message. At that moment, her pet dog, Marley, jumped onto her lap, and the sudden jolt caused her head to snap backward.

As a result, the spoon she was holding in her mouth slipped down into her throat. "It was a desperate moment where I had to choose between choking or swallowing," she said, adding, "I could feel the spoon sliding smoothly down into my stomach."

A Belgian woman in her 20s accidentally swallowed an entire 17 cm metal spoon in a shocking incident. Screenshot from The Mirror

Immediately after the accident, Remy tried to remove the spoon by herself but failed, and out of embarrassment, she did not even tell her boyfriend when he came home from work. However, after dinner she began to feel the spoon moving around in her abdomen, and eventually went to the emergency room.

"No matter what position I was in, I felt uncomfortable. It was hard to sleep," she said. Feeling extreme anxiety, she searched online for what to do, and every piece of information told her to go to the emergency room immediately.

When she finally arrived at the emergency room, the doctor told her, "The spoon is too large to pass naturally." An X-ray clearly showed the outline of a 17 cm spoon standing vertically. The medical team concluded that, given its size, natural passage would be difficult, and two days later they performed a removal procedure using an upper endoscopy. During the procedure, she suffered minor gastric bleeding and abrasions to the esophagus, but fortunately avoided any permanent physical damage.

After the incident, Remy shared some advice to help others avoid making the same mistake. "It was extremely dangerous to eat while a lively dog was on my lap," she said. "If your dog tends to jump up suddenly, teach commands like 'wait' or 'stay,' and do not try to multitask by looking after animals while doing something else at the same time." As a reminder to stay cautious, Remy decided to keep the spoon involved in the incident as a memento.

Meanwhile, if a foreign object is swallowed, it is crucial to immediately identify what it is and what symptoms are present, and one must never try to induce vomiting by force or stick fingers down the throat to pull it out. Such actions can push the object deeper or injure the wall of the esophagus, greatly increasing the risk of secondary infection and perforation.