There’s an unexpected danger lurking in your barbecue

It may be more than charcoaled meat you have to worry about when barbecuing – the barbecue tools themselves could present a surprising danger.

An Australian surgeon has treated the first-ever case of a person being seriously injured by the wire-bristle brush of the type commonly used to clear barbecues of rust or dirt.

The ABC reports that a man on the New South Wales coast visited the Coffs Harbour hospital emergency department three times with abdominal pain that was most severe when he ate. It wasn’t until his fourth visit that he was given a CT scan that revealed he had a sharp object sticking through his small intestine and into his pancreas.

Rafael Gaszynski, the trainee surgeon who operated on the man, told the ABC he had expected to find a fish bone when he went to retrieve the object.

“I saw this black thing which kind of surprised me,” he said “I pulled it out … to my surprise it was a barbecue bristle.”

Although this is the first reported case of its kind in Australia, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US started warning as early as 2012 that the brush bristles posed a health risk, after a spate of six cases in just over 18 months. The bristles pierced numerous parts of the body, from the soft tissues of the neck to the gastrointestinal tract, the CDC said.

“Before cooking, persons should examine the grill surface carefully for the presence of bristles that might have dislodged from the grill brush and could embed in cooked food,” the health body advised. “Alternative residential grill-cleaning methods or products might be considered.”

Do you use one of these brushes to clean your barbecue? Have you ever thought to look for stray bristles?