Mercury aspiration from a broken thermometer

A 3-year-old boy presented to our Accident and Emergency (A&E) department after biting on a glass mercury thermometer. He was clinically stable. A chest x ray revealed small globules of mercury in the lungs (fig 1). Figure 1 An anterior–posterior erect chest and abdominal radiograph shows multiple specks of metallic density over the right middle lobe and lower lobe proximally with a speck overlying the …