TEXAS CITY – One man's favorite burger sent him to an operating table. Now, he has a warning that may be hard to stomach for people who grill at home.
Thomas Hatcher has four stitches in his tongue after he was eating his favorite meal Monday night: his wife's homemade burger with jalapeno and onion. However, it was accidentally spiked with 14 millimeters of wire.
"I was about halfway through it when I felt something really sharp, intense pain in the back of my throat," Hatcher said.
Once he felt that barb, he immediately knew it was a bristle from the grill cleaner.
"It was dragging on the back of my mouth," Hatcher said. "She got me the tweezers and we were trying to grab it with tweezers. But when I would stick my tongue out, (the wire) would go into my tongue."
A dentist even had a hard time finding it.
Two days later, a surgeon had to pull the wire out.
Hatcher believes it's part of a triangle grill brush his wife used to clean their grill before cooking. She wiped it down, but one bristle stuck in a burger.
Hatcher is telling his story to warn others and keep them from feeling his pain.
