Woman punctures intestine, suffers infection after cleaning grill

Before you fire up the grill for Father’s Day, heed a warning about how you clean your barbeque.

A Puyallup woman has spent more than a week in the hospital after swallowing a tiny bristle from the wire brush she used to clean her grill. Tammy Johnson, 57, needed emergency surgery when the wire punctured her intestines. She then developed an infection.

Q13 reports she is still in quarantine at the hospital.

Swallowing wire bristles from grill brushes has become such a problem that the Centers for Disease Control issued a warning two years ago.

Last year, an Edmonds teenager was rushed to the hospital with the same issue. Many experts suggest cleaning your grill with a scouring pad instead of the wire brushes.