Mom Undergoes Emergency Surgery After Swallowing Covid Test

After swallowing a COVID-19 test throat swab that ended up going all the way down to her intestines, a UK mother feared for her life.

After feeling unwell after a night shift, the mother of one decided to do an at-home COVID-19 fast test, but the tool wouldn’t come out when she tried to swab her throat. When they failed to remove the instrument, the Durham resident tried swallowing it, but it just made it slide farther down.

“It only went halfway down my throat,” bemoaned the worried mother, who was at home with her youngest child at the time.

Lee claimed she struggled to breathe at one point but was finally able to do so.

The quick-thinking guardian said she hopped in the car and drove directly to A&E to avoid alarming her kid by calling 911.

Regrettably, the doctors indicated they’d never encountered anything like her condition before.

Doctors eventually decided on emergency surgery, which required putting a small flexible camera down her throat to detect the instrument, followed by surgical tools to extricate the giant Q-Tip.

The operation went off without a hitch, but the accompanying photos revealed how serious the situation may have been if Lee had not sought medical help.

The US Food and Drug Administration advised at-home COVID-19 quick test users to simply swab their noses in January, dismissing viral rumors claiming the tests are more accurate when users swab their throats as well.

The FDA recommends that COVID-19 tests be used as directed by the manufacturer, which includes following the manufacturer’s instructions for acquiring the sample for testing. The FDA also expressed worries about the safety of self-collecting throat swabs, which can injure a patient if done wrong and should be collected by a skilled physician.

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