Anyone who has walked through the fields is familiar with sandburs, and knows how painful they can be when they contact the exposed extremities. This is a report of a man who accidentally swallowed two sandburs.
The patient came to the hospital one evening complaining of a sharp pain in the left side of his neck. The pain began while he and a friend were drinking coffee. Since the pain started suddenly and was localized to a small area, the two men thought that a sliver of glass had been swallowed. They became alarmed and rushed to the hospital. On the way over, the patient expectorated a profuse amount of blood-tinged sputum and noted that he was comfortable only if he kept his neck rigidly flexed to the left.
The pharynx was anesthetized, and a short esophageal speculum was introduced. Two sandburs (Figure) were seen embedded in the left pyriform