Throw away your metal bristle barbecue brushes. Don’t take the chance, it’s not worth it!  

My daughter had to undergo emergency surgery a few months ago because a barbecue bristle pierced right through her esophagus.

And I am sharing with you what happened to my daughter because I don’t want it to happen to anyone else!

My husband barbecued burgers the night before. He and my son ate dinner blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked in one of the burgers.

The next morning my daughter heated up one of the burgers for breakfast. As she was eating, she suddenly started choking and throwing up.

She felt like something was scratchy. We both figured she choked on a scratchy burnt piece of meat and would be OK.

She started feeling better, so we thought nothing more of it. She was heading downtown to celebrate a recent show she danced in. Her friend picked her up and off they went.

Unbeknownst to me, she had mostly a liquid lunch. Her throat was bothering her, so she only ate a couple of bites of the crepes she ordered.

Celebration finished, she went on to assist a dance class.

That evening while dancing and whipping her head around, she felt a bump protruding on the left side of her neck.

Her friends took her to a hospital downtown and called me. I rushed downtown in the midst of a thunderstorm, praying I’d get there safely for her.

By 3:30 in the morning, she was in emergency surgery to get the foreign object out – the thin foreign object detected with an MRI was by this time suspected to be a barbeque bristle.

The bristle had pierced right through her esophagus into the muscle tissue in her neck.
Apparently it was close to, but thankfully did not pierce any major blood vessels.

I was stunned when the surgeon came out to speak to me afterwards, and showed me a picture on his phone of the thin 2cm long bristle they removed from her neck, lined up against a ruler.

She spent the next few days in the hospital on a feeding tube and antibiotics so the hole in her esophagus could heal without risk of internal infections. Not the week she had planned!

Although she could go back to teaching dance once she was released from the hospital. It took some time before she could dance full-on again.

Her neck scar continues to heal and she still has at least one more follow-up appointment with the surgeon. She is covering up her neck scar with Mepiform silicone dressing to minimze scarring as much as possible.

All this because of a thin 2 cm piece of barbecue brush metal.

Had I known just how much damage one of these barbecue bristles could do, we would not have been using these brushes on our barbecue!

My husband threw the brush out immediately! Still though, there was a lot of guk on the grill when I ran a paper towel down the side of the grates. A perfect sticky gooey hiding spot for barbecue bristles to hide out in.

He bought a wooden paddle. These have become a popular option I see in hardware stores this summer. I’ve had a few friends tell me and read some reviews that they don’t work well.

Nonetheless, my daughter’s surgeon recommended against using these as well. They can splinter, and there is a risk of swallowing a wood splinter which could also cause issues.  No more wooden paddle.

Her surgeon suggested using a continuous loop brush as an alternative. One continuous piece of stainless steel wire. Not something that we seemed to be able to find easily.

I found a continuous loop brush on Amazon, and the reviews on its effectiveness were mixed.

When searching online, I saw people recommending scrunching up aluminum foil and using that. Sounds great and cheap. But not practical for cleaning a hot grill I thought.

Then I saw a cool technique on the Reynolds aluminum foil website

They take the rolled up aluminum foil and hold onto it with tongs to scrape down the grill.  I don’t think my husband ever tried it, but it sure looked like a safe an economical alternative.  Except that we tend to grill a lot in the summer, and I’d be throwing out a lot of aluminum foil.

I approached a friend of mine who is into barbecueing as a hobby in a big way. He said that a lot of these gadgets loosen the guck, but don’t clean the grill. I get that – there was a lot a guck on the sides of the grill grates when I wiped them down with a paper towel. But none of us even considered that before my daughter’s accident.

His recommendation is to use a hard metal scraper that you scrape down one grill at a time and scrape the sides too. Then wipe down the grill to remove the loosened residue.

If the grill is cool, we’ve used a paper towel or wet cloth to wipe the grill. If wiping down a hot grill, a wet cloth held by long tongs works (same technique I saw on the Reynolds website for using aluminum foil).

Yes, it takes longer. But the safety of my family is more important than a few extra minutes cleaning a grill.

No matter what method you choose to use to clean your grill grates, always wipe down the grill afterwards to remove loosened residue before placing food on the grill.

I shared my daughter’s  story with you because I don’t want the same or worse to happen to your family.

The ear nose throat surgeon that operated on my daughter said they are trying to get the word out there about the dangers of these bristle brushes.  And I’m hoping that by sharing my daughter’s story with you, you heed the warning and replace your barbecue bristle brushes with a safer alternative.

It’s so easy to think ‘It won’t happen to me’.  Make sure it doesn’t! If you use a bristle brush to clean your barbecue, switch to a safer alternative and give your barbecue a thorough cleaning.

Here’s to safer grilling,
Barb

P.S.  Here are a few links to articles I found on the dangers of bbq brushes – if you Google it, there’s more.  I wish I had seen these before my daughter became a casualty of this dangerous cleaning tool.

Surgeon wants metal BBQ brushes banned after dozens of injuries
A growing danger in grilling season
BBQ Grill Brush Wires Causing Big Health Woes
AMA urges caution with use of wire-bristle BBQ grill brushes
Ont. man needed surgery after barbecue brush bristle pierced his tongue
Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes
AMA cautions about health risks from wire-bristle grill brushes
New standards coming for BBQ brushes following metal bristle injuries