The Un-Safe Safety Pins?

If you’re a competing athlete who needs to fasten number bibs to your shiny exercise gear from time to time, chances are you are no stranger to an elaborate safety pin routine. Over the years, people have developed many special techniques of fastening bib numbers using these unruly devices. There are countless tutorials available online containing tips and tricks, as well as sharing the understandable frustration that goes along with it. After all, up to seven pins are usually needed to secure the bib number – and not only it’s time-consuming, but also poses risks such as ruining the costume or even stabbing yourself in a rather unpleasant way.

Not like competition days aren’t busy enough without these problems…

Turns out, however, that there is more drama involved – safety pins are not exactly the safest items to keep around! There are numerous reports of accidents involving safety pins – here are a couple of uninspiring examples.

Curious little ones

This one is for you if there are kids in your household – too bad this toddler didn’t find a better pin alternative…

A recent accident in Aurangabad, India, has left the mother worried after her eight-month-old son accidentally swallowed an open safety pin while being breastfed. Apparently, the pin was hooked to a chain in mother’s neck and accidentally slipped without her noticing.

A local pediatrician Dr. Rajiv Totla examined the child shortly after the freak accident occurred, finding the toddler “was stable and his abdomen was soft. The fresh X-ray revealed the pin was in upper abdomen but was not causing any harm. I put the child under observation for a few more days for gravity to play its role. A fresh X-ray showed the pin had moved towards the rectum without injuring his intestine.

We did a small medical procedure the next day and removed the pin,” – the doctor told The Times of India reporters.

Unfortunately, such accidents are way too common all around the world, as evidenced by another recent occurrence. A few months ago, a little boy from the town of Caraisan, Ilocos Sur had to be hospitalized after ingesting a safety pin.

The mother didn’t notice her son playing with an odd safety pin lying around the house, so she was very surprised when the boy suddenly started crying and complaining that his throat felt very sore.

“When I opened his mouth and looked inside”, – the mother told the reporters, – “I saw that the safety pin was already in his throat. He kept crying yesterday. Whenever he swallowed, he cried.” This called for an emergency investigation – the boy was rushed to a local hospital, where the pin was promptly removed by the concerned medical workers. Fortunately, the pin didn’t go deep, and there were no complications – however, the doctors were quick to note that’s not always the case, and the consequences could have been very sad. Even though it was certainly a happy ending, the boy still required a course of strong antibiotics as a precautionary measure.

It could happen to anyone, really…

It’s not only the little ones who get in trouble with safety pins though!

A case report from the World Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery tells the story of a 29-year old woman with a safety pin lodged in her appendix. The pin location was particularly concerning in this case, since foreign bodies may induce appendicitis and at the same time they rarely move on their own, meaning an interventional procedure is usually necessary.

The young lady initially presented with unusual abdominal pain, leaving the medical team quite puzzled, especially since communication was limited due to the patient’s Prader-Willi syndrome, responsible for auto-aggressive behavior.