Imagine looking at your toddler’s X-ray and seeing that SpongeBob SquarePants has taken up residence in the child’s throat. That is exactly what happened to a little boy in Saudi Arabia. Doctors at the King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Jeddah were shocked when they could see the clear image of the cartoon character wedged in the child’s esophagus. One of the doctors actually said that he screamed out in surprise when he recognized the character.
Apparently, the boy had swallowed a tiny pendant bearing the likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants. The 16-month old child had swiped the figure from his sister and must have thought it would make a rather tasty snack. Doctors said they could see the character’s fingers, shoes, details of his facial expression such as his tongue sticking out, and even his freckles and shorts on the X-ray, and therefore, there was no mistaking what the object was.
Luckily, despite having had SpongeBob SquarePants take up residence in his throat, the toddler is doing just fine after doctors carefully extracted the pendant and sent SpongeBob back to his pineapple under the sea.
This toddler is far from the first child to have a weird object removed from his body. Kids as well as adults have swallowed all sorts of odd things. There are many cases of children swallowing toys, including stuffed animals. There are also cases of people swallowing bizarre items such as knives, alarm clocks, jewelry, engagement rings, hair and many other strange objects.
The motives for swallowing the items are as diverse as the objects themselves. Some people have a disorder called pica, which causes them to eat non-edible things. One example of this is a woman who ate her silverware every time she was at the table for meals. When doctors finally treated her, she had 78 pieces of flatware in her stomach.
Other motives include theft, attempt to escape from prison by eating objects that require a hospital stay, and accidentally swallowing an object while trying to retrieve another accidentally swallowed item. In the case of the toddler who had SpongeBob SquarePants take up residence in his throat, though, it was an example of a kid being a kid. Luckily, he is back with his family after his unintentional adventure.