Peru doctors save toddler who swallowed eight medical needles

LIMA: Peruvian doctors performed emergency surgery on Saturday (September 9) on a two-year-old child who accidentally swallowed eight hypodermic needles.

"It was once we were in the operating room and we opened up his abdomen that we found those metal pieces, (and realized) they were really needles," Dr. Efrain Salazar said.

The infant was rushed to a local hospital, where he underwent a two-hour surgery to remove the eight needles in different parts of his stomach and intestinal tract.

The child ingested the needles while playing on the farm where his mother works, in a village in Mariscal Caceres, northern Peru province.

The child's family presume the needles are thought to have been for injecting cows, and the child found them and swallowed them.

"Maybe he swallowed them when he was there playing," the boy's mother said.

Doctors said the child is recovering quickly from surgery and will remain in hospital for at least three days before discharge.