A South American woman was rushed to a hospital after a nefarious object made its way into her bag of pork rinds.
Peru resident Celia Tello, 68, was enjoying a snack in February when she felt something sharp hit her throat, according to Reuters.
The woman soon fell ill and began vomiting blood. After being taken to an emergency room, doctors discovered that the nail was piercing one of her carotid arteries – which help supply oxygen and blood to the brain.
Tello thought the mysterious object was a bone, but it turned out to be even more unusual: a nail.
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Pork rind snacks seen on a Walgreen shelf. (Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“It never crossed my mind I had this nail or piece of wire,” Tello told Reuters in Spanish.
Surgeon Diego Cuipal explained that a “careful dissection” was done to safely remove the nail from her body. There was a risk of “detaching a clot that could reach the brain,” but doctors conducted the surgery successfully.
“We were able to isolate the affected artery and we repaired it by sectioning it and we joined a healthy artery with another healthy artery,” Cuipal said in Spanish.
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Tello’s x-ray images showed the nail protruding into her throat. The woman, who now has a neck scar, has healed since then.
![Bags of pork rinds on shelf](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/03/1200/675/pork-rinds-2.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Bags of pork rinds and other snacks in a Mexican grocery store. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
It is rare for dangerous objects to make their way into food, but similar incidents have occurred. In 2018, a Burger King customer found a fingernail in his burger – and accidentally ate it.
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“It was crunchy man,” Anek said to FOX 8. “I threw up three times.”
A year later, a Chipotle customer in Massachusetts bit into his burrito and allegedly hit a nail, which he said chipped his tooth.
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![Basket of pork rinds](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/03/1200/675/pork-rinds-1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
A basket of pork rinds photographed in Modena, Emilia Romagna, Italy. (Giovanni Mereghetti/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to Tello for a statement.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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