A young girl swallowed a hatpin after loading it into a pea shooter to use as a dart. Since it was 1910, doctors did not want to perform an operation on her because of the danger involved in the procedure.
Hatpin in her Stomach
Suffering no pain and daily at play with her schoolmates, little Lucele Lavoie, the seven-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Elizear Lavoie, who has a large hatpin lodged in her stomach, is attracting the attention of leading physicians.
It was while amusing herself with an ordinary tin tube pea shooter, or blower, that little Miss Lavoie invented the scheme of using a round headed hatpin instead of peas, as the hatpin when blown from the tube served as a dart and would stick in the target.
The sport became exciting, and each time the little girl blew harder.
Finally she put the shooter to her mouth, drew an unusually deep breath and suck the pin, head first, into her throat.
She coughed violently, but the next moment she had swallowed it.
Physicians were powerless to remove the pin without performing a most serious operation.
She was in no pain, but coughed almost continuously.
She was submitted to the X ray, and the black headed hatpin could be seen in her stomach.
Source: Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.), 15 April 1910.
