If I had swallowed one...
This article would've gotten it out.
I _did_ convince a friend (no children involved) to swallow a R50 note (about 2 pounds at that time)... and he subsequently retrieved it, and snapped it (after cleaning).
Just a week ago we applauded efforts of boffins who figured out how wombats pinch off delightful little Oxo cube poos. Now it seems our squishy marsupial pals are in the esteemed company of the medical community, members of which have been wilfully gobbling (and passing) Lego pieces. Why? Well, let's be charitable and describe …
Or perhaps that's all of the reg. anyway.
> Did they try to swallow a standard, four-nodule brick? Did they f*%k
I suspect you are thinking of the standard four by two, thus eight nodule brick. The four nodule brick is two by two nodules, and given it height to width ratio, a reasonably comfortable object to pass. The four by eight is an altogether less gut friendly proposition...
Those who think standing on a Lego brick barefoot is painful have obviously never stood on a UK mains plug.
As for eating weird stuff, my daughter has pica, and has eaten all kinds of things including chalk, wax crayons, play sand and paper towels. She didn't much like the play sand coming out the other end.
The venerable 555 has a habit of landing pins-up just exactly where my heel is going to come down. I've stepped on 6 of the damn things over the years ... all drew blood, two of them left bits behind in the bone, requiring removal by a surgeon. No other IC has ever assaulted me, just the 555. Is it paranoia when they really are out to get me?
Cotter pins (split pins to you Brits)
What we call cotter pins are the sort of tapered-with-a-nut-on-the-end solid pin that old pushbikes used to use to hold the pedal crank onto the driveshaft.
The pin that you used to tighten when there was slop or play in the pedals.. until one day you pulled it entirely through the pedal crank and had to replace it..
I suspect they do things slightly differently nowadays - I haven't ridden a pushbike since 1982 (when I was old enough to ride a motorbike).
40-pin processor chip embedded in their knee..
I too have knelt on a 486 (a 486dx25 to be precise). It came of an old PC and was in a tin box with other chip effluvia.
I managed to knock the tin off the bench and, in kneeling down to pick it up, with unerring precision knelt on the upside-down chip. Whilst wearing shorts.
It hurt. A lot. And didn't do much for the pins on the chip either.
... Did your family doctor resist the chance to say "This too shall pass" the second or third time you brought your daughter in? Mine didn't. I found it funny, and made the mistake of laughing ... her mom threatened to strangle me.
(My daughter grew out of it before age four. Hopefully yours will, too. The grand-daughter showed no intention of following in her mother's footsteps, thankfully.)
"[...] for small foreign bodies, [...]"
The exception is coin cell batteries - which are very dangerous if swallowed. The voltage sets up an electrolysis process if it stays in contact with the gut wall. This will destroy the tissue and lead to serious consequences.
A doctor said he once ignored a pill's "take with water" instruction. It lodged in his gullet and he needed treatment for the tissue damage a chemical reaction caused.
ignored a pill's "take with water" instruction
*Very* highly recommended with asprin (or take with milk for extra buffering). Even though acetyl salicylic acid is a weak acid, it's still an acid. And if it lodges somewhere without a good mucus coat, you *will* get burnt.
The dangers of Lego are well documented. Everyone knows that treading on one of the buggers barefoot hurts more than childbirth.
It is a prerequisite before you decide to have a family: https://www.rollercoaster.ie/Article/Baby-on-the-Way/Test-Are-you-ready-to-be-a-parent
One of the joys of getting old is the NHS home DIY screening programme for bowel cancer. Gives a new meaning to Pooh Sticks (made of cardboard).
The light at the end of the tunnel is that they don't bother testing people beyond their mid-70s. Either they assume by then you are pretty resilient - or something else will kill you first.
Those new plant bits aren't bio-degradable; they're just made from polymers derived from plants instead of oil. They're just as stable as any other plastic.
So no, stay green, and remember to always fish out your kids' plastic pollution prior to pulling the chain. Won't somebody think of the turtles?
('No Shit' icon seems appropriate...)
The Chairman was having some internal faults that endocscopy and colonoscopy could not isolate. So after another day of fasting and, er, flushing my buffers I found myself ingesting a small camera bot with a wireless backhaul. Its a tough pill to swallow. Literally.
Post scan ... it was a tough day for other reasons, and I was feeling a little low. Thoughts of "how can life get worse?" started going through me head.
Alas, upon arising from the Seat of Contemplation, I saw staring at me from the bowl my faithful little robot, its little LED light glowing fitfully. And I thought to myself, "No matter how bad my day has gone, that little robot REALLY had a s#!tty day. No worries."