一粒爆米花差點要了一名男子的命

A stray popcorn kernel nearly cost a 41-year-old UK man his life last year, by sparking a heart infection that required major surgery to fix.

去年一粒跑偏的爆米花差點要了英國一名41歲男子的命，他心臟被感染，需要大型手術才能修復。

His medical team believes that by attempting to remove the offending food item from his teeth with a variety of DIY dentistry items – including a tooth pick, a pen lid, a piece of wire, and a nail – firefighter Adam Martin gave himself an infection that damaged his heart valves.

消防員Adam Martin的主治醫(yī)生們認為因為他用了各種自制剔牙工具，如牙簽、筆蓋、鐵絲、指甲，試圖從牙縫里摳出令他不舒服的食物殘渣，導致心臟瓣膜被感染。

Two heavy-duty surgeries later, Martin is on the road to recovery with a new heart valve. But he and his wife want us all to take a lesson away from this story.

Martin接受了兩次大型手術，換了新的心臟瓣膜，身體正在康復。但他和妻子想讓我們所有人從他的事上吸取教訓。

We've all been where he was. Chomping on popcorn by the handful, one tiny fragment worms its way into a crevice between molars. And so begin hours of tongue-swishing, finger-poking, tooth-brushing, mouthwash-swirling…

我們都遇到過他的情況。把一把爆米花塞嘴里嚼，小碎屑就會鉆進磨牙的牙縫里。然后我們就得花幾個小時用舌頭舔、用手指摳、刷牙、用漱口水沖。

Unfortunately, it doesn't take much probing to open a capillary or two. Our gums are delicate tissues packed full of blood vessels just begging to be scratched open, giving pathogens an easy entrance to our body.

但不幸的是，毛細血管很容易受損。我們的牙齦是很嬌嫩的組織，布滿血管，被弄破以后病原體很容易侵入身體。

Consider that even the healthiest human mouth is home to at least 700 species of bacteria, many of which we know surprisingly little about. Introduce the foreign material that's attached to the business end of a nail or pen lid, and you're just asking for trouble.

想想看最健康的人類口腔里也會有至少700種細菌，我們對其中很多細菌所知甚少。再弄進來附著在釘子尖端或筆蓋上的細菌，你簡直就是在自找麻煩。

Most microscopic organisms that manage to get past our outer defences will still face an immune response. But those that can outwit a skirmish of white blood cells have an easy trip around the body's circulatory system.

大多數(shù)能成功穿過我們外層防御的微生物會遇到免疫反應，但那些能戰(zhàn)勝白細胞的微生物很容易進入體內(nèi)循環(huán)系統(tǒng)。