Man's lung ailment caused by fragment of fast food spoon

"I know I didn't chow down on a spoon!" declared John Manley, who recently discovered that an eating utensil was the source of his two years of ill health, coughing, vomiting and pain. The Wilmington, North Carolina, resident had surgery last week to remove part of a plastic spoon from his lung. And it wasn't just any old plastic spoon; it came from the fast-food chain Wendy's, with the restaurant logo clearly visible on the handle.

"It must have been in the food or drink," Manley told CNN affiliate WECT. His doctor found the spoon after looking into his lungs with an endoscope, a medical instrument with a long, thin tube containing a light and a video camera. "He explained that there was an object down there, and it had writing on it," Manley said. "It spelled out 'Wendy's' on one side and 'hamburgers' on the other, and I was a little floored."

So were his relatives, who, when they were telephoned with the news, were eating ... Wendy's.

via Man's lung ailment caused by fragment of fast food spoon - CNN.com.

The x-ray of a spoon above is from the following story at uphaa:

A young Australian woman, 26, accidentally swallowed a teaspoon in a laughing fit while eating spaghetti during a dinner conversation. She laughed so hard that the 15-centimeter spoon lodged in her throat at the top of her stomach.
The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reports that the doctors at Canterbury Hospital had sedated the woman and taken out the spoon "with great difficulty" during the 90-minute operation.

Here is another one:

A 50-year-old man presented to the emergency department with marked dysphagia, dyspnea, and paroxysmal cough. He had swallowed a spoon while trying to extract a fish bone that was stuck in his throat. The presence and position of the spoon were verified in two radiographs (Panels A and B). With the patient under general anesthesia and with the aid of a laryngoscope, the end of the tablespoon was grabbed with forceps and safely extracted. No fish bone was detected on evaluation with esophagogastroduodenoscopy. The spoon was 19 cm in overall length, and the bowl of the spoon was 6.5 cm by 4 cm by 0.5 cm in its largest dimensions.

Source

Here is a reminder of how the something like  a fork could get into your lungs.... but I have a very hard time understanding how a person could not be aware of the event. Sleep eating?