Doctors at a hospital in Novosibirsk, Russia, will never forget the day that little Nastya Poltoranina came to them with a high fever. At first they thought she might have meningitis, but a computer tomography scan quickly revealed something that left the surgeons speechless.
Nastya had been at home with her mother Veronica and had been painting while her mother prepared the dinner. Suddenly Veronica heard a loud noise and rushed over to find her three-year-old daughter lying on the floor in tears. Nastya was holding a paintbrush in her hand and her right eye was swollen.
You can watch Nastya’s amazing story here in this video (in Russian):
Veronica brought Nastya to a nearby hospital where doctors treated her swollen eye. Seeing no further problems, they allowed Veronica to take her daughter home. But a short time later, Nastya suddenly had a terrible fever. Her parents brought her to the hospital again and doctors performed a computer tomography scan. The images showed something very large in Nastya’s cranial cavity, an unidentifiable object lodged in her brain. The doctors could hardly believe what they were seeing and knew they had to act fast. They immediately performed surgery to remove the object.
Further tests revealed that the object lodged in Nasty’s brain was actually a metal piece from a paintbrush. Veronica was shocked when she remembered the accident that her daughter had had while painting and realized she had missed something very important — after her daughter had fallen, she had only found a piece of the paintbrush in her hand. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that the other piece was stuck in her daughter’s skull.
It turned out that Nastya had stuck the paintbrush in her eye when she lost her balance and fell. The brush had narrowly missed her eyeball and gone straight into her brain. Nastya had pulled it out, but the metal part had remained lodged in her brain. Amazingly, it had not made contact with arteries. If it had, the little girl would have died instantly.
The surgery was very risky and lasted five hours. Doctors were concerned that the metal object had damaged Nastya’s brain, which could have led to numerous other health problems. But Veronica has one very lucky daughter — the operation went smoothly, the object was completely removed and Nastya had no permanent injuries. Barely a week later, Nastya was already doing much better.
Drawing and painting are things that all children love to do and no parent would consider these activities dangerous. But this story goes to show that you can never be too careful when it comes to children. Even things like paintbrushes and pencils that may seem harmless can actually do great harm when small children use them without proper supervision. Veronica has learned this lesson the hard way, but she is still lucky to have her little Nastya. And it’s a good bet that she won’t be leaving her daughter alone with her paintbrushes again.
