His barbecue tried to kill him!

Ok, maybe it didn’t actually
try to kill him, but when Adam Wojtanowicz woke
up with a serious stomach ache after throwing a barbeque
and bachelor party, he chalked it up to a night of excess.
Turns out the pain was from too much heavy metal. Not the
music, but a steel bristle from his barbeque brush.

In an interview with Ross and Burbank, the Tacoma man
says the pain went away after a few days, but came roaring
back a few weeks later.

“It got to the point where I couldn’t walk. I felt like
an old man hunched over and then the pain got too
intense,” he says.

Doctors first chalked it up to an intestinal disorder,
gave him some meds and sent him home. Two days later, the
pain became unbearable. A CAT scan revealed a sharp metal
shard was lodged in his intestine.

“We brainstormed for like an hour and then the surgeon
walked in and said ‘I know what it is.’ It was a bristle
from a barbeque brush,” he says.

Wojtanowicz traced it back to the bachelor party. But
he doesn’t know how it ended up in his steak and then his
stomach.

“It must have stuck somehow on the grill and then when
I threw my steak on there the next time, it just stuck
onto the steak or something.” And it somehow ended up in
the perfect position to go undetected as he swallowed it.

Wojtanowicz is recovering from surgery he had last week
to remove the bristle and repair his intestine. He’s
limited to a liquid diet for the time being, but plans to
hit the grill again when he’s better…with a couple of
caveats.

“I think I’ll probably get a new barbeque, change out
my brush and chew 20 times before I swallow every bite
from now on like my mom used to tell me to do when I was
5,” he laughs.

For argument’s sake: What is the difference between
grilling and barbequing?

“I always say grilling is an art, barbeque is a religion,”
explained Tom Douglas, host of 97.3 KIRO FM’s Seattle
Kitchen. With barbequing, Douglas said, “You put the
lid on and you let it go, and you trust. You have faith
that the fire and the smokes are doing their jobs.”

For grilling, he said it’s more wham-bam, “It’s much more
of having the right sear, and getting it hot, and the
right fire level.”

Listen to Tom Douglas and Thierry Rautureau’s grilling secrets. Seattle Kitchen can be
heard on 97.3 KIRO FM on Saturdays at 2pm-4pm and Sundays
at 10am-noon or anytime at KIRO Radio.

MyNorthwest recommends BBQ side dishes