A pleasant dinner with his parents left a two-and-half year-old-boy from Anhui Province with a 12-centimeter chopstick imbedded in his nose and his life in danger, Youth Daily reported today.

The child, Haohao, was having dinner at his home in Hefei, Anhui Province on Friday night when he got down from the dinner table to walk about. Still holding his chopsticks he tripped over a toy on the ground and fell awkwardly.

His parents heard him cry out in pain and picked him up, finding a chopstick imbedded in his left nostril and blood pouring out. His father, surnamed Ni, snatched the boy up and rushed him to a local hospital where doctors told the family the accident could prove fatal – on hearing this one of the boy's grandparents fainted.

On Saturday morning Haohao's parents rented an ambulance for more than 5,000 yuan (US$731) and moved the child 470 kilometers from Hefei to Shanghai giving him oxygen all the way. But even so he developed a fever and lost consciousness, his mother throughout holding his hand.

Six hours later a team of experts at Xinhua Hospital in Yangpu District began examining the boy and found the chopstick had not caused serious brain damage or ruptured any major blood vessels

A few hours later doctors operated and removed the chopstick in a 90-minute operation.

Haohao is now in a stable condition in the hospital - but his much-relieved parents doubt they will let him use chopsticks for a long time.

(Shanghai Daily March 30, 2009)