A 10-year-old boy was complaining of pain in his right leg for a week. When a top doctor at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Medical Center discovered the problem, he and his parents were surprised.
Kirel Alabogin had been playing on his bed last week when he fell down and experienced excruciating pain. He had seen a doctor, who performed an X-ray and sent him back home with instructions for local wound care.
However, the pain persisted.
On Wednesday night, Alabogin turned up at Assuta Ashdod’s pediatric emergency room where another X-ray was taken. This time, the doctor, Ido Wolyniez, did the X-ray. When he read the images he found a seven centimeter-long pencil had penetrated the boys leg and was lodged right near his knee.
An operation was performed and the pencil was removed. Alabogin is expected to be released on Thursday.
“This is a patient who suffered for a week from a foreign object that had penetrated his right leg and was not identified in a community examination before arriving at the hospital,” said Assuta’s Dr. Ron Lamdan. "Upon his arrival, we identified the problem at the hospital and Kirel was admitted for a successful operation.
“This is the opportunity to ask the parents, especially now when children are not in formal frameworks: Make sure their activities are supervised,” he concluded.