Boy gets ‘pencil’ stuck in ear, doctor pulls out something much worse

A young boy for some reason decided sticking a pencil in his ear would be a good idea, except it was actually something much worse.

SPLENDID

Children surprise and delight us, but there are many occasions when adults question what the intentions are behind some of their odd behaviors. This little boy was one such situation, but with a strange twist.

He decided for some reason that sticking a pencil in his ear would be a good idea, except it was actually something much worse.

EVERYWHERE IT FITS

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Some toddlers and young children put small foreign objects in their ears, nose or eyes out of curiosity. Why? They experiment with the world around them and learn what happens when they try different things.

Lewis King was definitely not a toddler anymore, so nobody, especially his grandmother, expected what he would tell them.

BAD HABITS

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Statistics show that children under the age of four are most at risk of inserting small foreign objects in their ears, nose or even their eyes, but it seems that some of them are not breaking this bad habit fast enough.

Some of the most common items are food. Things like popcorn, dried peas, watermelon seeds, and chocolate-covered nuts. Lewis settled on a tiny stub of pencil. Easy in, not as easy out as he would soon discover.

BABYSITTING

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While Lewis’ grandma, Sheila King, was babysitting, this whole story unfolded. It was family routine for Grandma to look after Lewis while his mother was at work.

A fairly common situation, but caring for a very active little boy is still a huge responsibility. Little did she realize how wrong things could go under her watch.

WORST FEAR

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The biggest fear of every babysitter, even a grandma who is taking care of grandchildren, is that something bad will happen to the child you are caring for. Sheila felt a surge of fear run through her veins the first time he said those words to her.

There was not only the fear and panic at the moment the accident happened, but also the fear of knowing that you have to tell mom and/or dad now. And you never want anything bad to happen when you are taking care of someone else’s child.

A QUIET CHILD

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Her daughter would never forgive her if something bad happened to Lewis, her pride and joy, while she was under her care. So of course that’s exactly what happened. Lewis was perfectly still, painting in his room.

She should have known a quiet kid was up to something. It was silent when it happened and entirely avoidable if she’d been watching him closely. But you can’t watch a 10-year-old all the time.

COULD NOT SEE ANYTHING

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It wasn’t until Lewis started complaining about a pain in his ear that Sheila knew something was wrong at all. If he hadn’t told her, the consequences could have been serious.

She looked into the disturbing ear hole, but without a special tool at hand it was impossible to see anything but darkness and black. Time was pressing now. Sheila quickly packed up her things and followed the contingency plan. Would she make it in time?

BEGINS PANIC

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Lewis started crying and playing with his ear when his grandmother couldn’t find anything. He noted her panic and the seriousness of having a foreign object in his head.

She almost had to hold his hands as he scratched his face, panic making the pain inside her worse. Sheila knew it was time to go to the ER.

TIME FOR THE HOSPITAL

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Sheila eventually arrived at the hospital with the little boy in tow. By now he had burst into sobbing tears from the panic. He couldn’t understand the full implications of what they had done, but the seriousness of the situation made him very nervous.

They wouldn’t have to wait long to hear what the doctor had to say.

A TIGHT FIT

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dr Phillip Russel was the rotational doctor that day. He looked in Lewis’ ear but soon realized that he needed much more sophisticated tools to identify where the pencil point was. The boy’s ear was completely blocked.

Lewis tried not to squirm as the doctor fiddled with his ear. It was a long wait with an unknown prognosis.

NO PENCIL

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The pin was lodged so deep in Lewis’ ear that it took much longer than anyone expected to get the tool around him, but eventually Dr. Russle the almost impossible.

He told Lewis to hold still while he removed the dangerous piece of wood and graphite deep in the boy’s ear canal. When the object reached the boy’s ear opening, everyone was stunned. It didn’t look like a pencil at all.

UNCOMFORTABLE FEELING

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“You did a good job, I can tell you that.” The doctor comments to Lewis on the sheer depth of the object. His grandmother watches and shakes her head in dismay. “Is that all, or just part of it?” The doctor asks, and Lewis replies firmly, “That’s all, I think. Yes, that’s all.”

But the doctor wasn’t satisfied with Lewis’ word: “Let’s look in your ear again.” He said as he shook the boy’s head again to complete the search. What he saw inside made the doctor very uncomfortable.

ARE YOU SURE?

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A small, round and rather wide object is balanced in the doctor’s forceps. Lewis, feeling some relief in his head, turned as soon as it was outside. Everyone in the room looked at the obnoxious object and confused looks went from Doctor to Gran and then to Lewis. He didn’t seem too concerned that the pencil in his ear was actually a whole battery.

“It looks more like a watch battery to me,” asks Dr. Russel the boy, “Are you sure it was a pencil?” And suddenly Lewis isn’t sure anymore: “I don’t think it really was that now…”

WORSE CASE SCENARIO

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It’s dangerous enough to have a pen in your ear, and the risks are obvious, as Dr. Russle explains… “The worst case scenario is that he gets a pervasive infection that could affect his hearing, his balance, his coordination and last enough [he] could even go deaf with it.”

It was fortunate that the experienced doctor was able to find it and remove it completely.

AN EXTRA HOLE

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“I can’t see your eardrum, which means it’s gone. It means you made a hole in it. Well, that can happen with things like that,” the doctor said to the angry grandmother, “We’re not fixing it or anything, it’ll fix itself.”

Luckily for Lewis, the eardrum is similar to skin and should grow back naturally within six weeks.

STROKE OF LUCK

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Lucky for Grandma too, according to Lewis, the “pencil” didn’t stick in his ear that day, but a whole week earlier. He must have started to get a sore ear, or just worried that his own attempts at figuring it out would actually only be forcing it deeper.

However, Grandma was in the clear as none of this happened during her watch. “Where he got that from and how it got in there I don’t know,” she admits as the camera tracks her.

NOT UNCOMMON

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It’s not uncommon for children to put things in their ears or noses, or even in other children’s ears and noses, but what is uncommon is to think that you’ve put a fairly large object, like a pencil, in your ear and it then turns out to be battery.

And while a pencil sounds super sharp and prickly, it’s actually a lot better than the hazard that a battery poses. An unchecked battery could leak acid, which can really complicate things.

QUITE STRANGE

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dr Russell says it’s quite common for kids to put things in their ears and noses: “The fact that he said it was a pencil and it turned out to be a watch battery, that’s pretty bizarre. “

But “We’ve seen this before, recently it was discovered that a girl with a cold stuck a clothespin in it!”

BIZARRE HE

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The grandmother and grandson duo were chosen to appear on the BBC TV series Bizarre ER before they even knew what weird turns were about to happen.

They have since racked up an impressive 19,155,344 views on YouTube alone.

LESSON LEARNED

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Strange and a little worrying, the boy thought a battery was a pencil. So we have to ask ourselves… Were her other objects that he put in his nose or in his ear that he successfully got out on his own?

Or was poor little Lewis just afraid he’d get in more trouble for a battery than a pencil? It doesn’t look like he’ll be telling us any of his secrets any time soon, but we hope he’s learned a valuable lesson, if only for poor old grandmother’s sake.