A Toronto-area mother is demanding that wire-bristled barbecue brushes be banned, after a bite of a burger landed her six-year-old son in the hospital with a tiny wire from their barbecue brush lodged inside him.
It was just another summer night for the Fiore family, who decided to have burgers on the grill for supper. But what happened to the little boy next was anything but normal.
Anthony Fiore took the first bite of his burger and immediately had a bizarre reaction.
"It felt like a needle," Anthony said.
The six-year-old's parents came forward about their ordeal to CBC News after Canadian surgeons urged people on Wednesday to throw out their wire-bristled brushes because the bristles can become stuck to barbecue grills and cling to food without being noticed. They haven't determined a way of removing the thin, sharp wires from people's throats when they're swallowed.


"We knew something was wrong and he was in extreme pain because he was crying," Anthony's mother Nadia said.
"From the time we had dinner to the time we had surgery it was about 12 hours later because our journey started at the local hospital and then we were transported to Sick Kids," she said.
Stories as old as barbecue brushes themselves

Surgeons have been dealing with an influx of patients needing emergency surgery to remove bristles lodged in throats and haven't quite figured out a "surefire" way of removing them, a Nova Scotia otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat specialist) told CBC News on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, CBC News reported on a Halifax woman who had a bristle lodged so far down her throat that surgeons couldn't reach it. It's still there.
An initial x-ray on Anthony showed a tiny bristle from the brush lodged inside his throat. Doctors told his mother they have seen this before and to ditch the brush.