A TikToker says she nearly died after inhaling her nose ring – which ended up in her lung.
The metallic object was located just half a millimetre from her aorta artery, the body’s main blood highway.
Monica Deyanira Cabrera Barajas spent several months with the item in her lung without realising.
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The 26-year-old believes she must have inhaled the accessory while asleep.
Deyanira shared her story on TikTok where it went viral with 4.7m views and 4,200 comments.
“The only theory I have, which I told the pulmonologist, is that I fell asleep, the little ball fell out, and that was it,” she told Need To Know.
“I was lying on my back, I didn’t realise, and that’s how I messed up.”
The influencer didn’t initially know it was missing as she has so many nostril rings at home.
But she soon began to feel unwell and developed a “chronic cough” that she simply put down to the change in weather in her home state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
Monica, who has a degree in veterinary medicine, suffered with symptoms for about a month before going to see a doctor.
A radiologist told her that the ring was positioned dangerously close to her aorta artery.
Deyanira, who was in the middle of planning her wedding, began to grow concerned.
The doctor told her that they could remove the object with a 20-minute emergency surgery but if that didn’t work, they would have to perform a more extensive procedure.
She said: “I was honestly thinking, ‘I’m going to die’.
“It’s a horror I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“It ended up taking an hour and 20 minutes and they still couldn’t remove it because it was attached to my body.”
The medical team surgically removed the object several days later during a follow-up procedure.
Deyanira said: “The pulmonologist told me, ‘It seems God takes care of his creatures’.
“It was only 0.5 millimetres from my aorta.
“The truth is, if that had perforated without warning, I would have likely died from lung collapse or because my aorta had also been perforated.
“I won’t lie, the night before the surgery, I wrote a farewell letter because I was so afraid of dying, and I spent the whole time listening to ‘That’s the Way It Is’ by Daniel Lanois.
“I love piercings, and I really liked my septum piercing, but in my case, I wouldn’t get it again because of the terror I experienced.
“It’s something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“This story isn’t meant to scare or demonise piercings, it’s simply to encourage caution and awareness that this can happen.”
Social media viewers were left shocked by the tqale.
One follower said: “I’ve had a nose ring for 20 years and nothing like that has ever happened to me.”
Candy remarked: “Wow, you just unlocked a fear I didn’t know I had!”
Deny added: “Me watching this with the new nose ring I just bought…”
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