Author: Alicja Zabielna, Sita Anala, Jawad Malik / Editor: Yasmin Sultan / Reviewer: Thomas Bannister / Codes: / Published: 06/07/2022 / Reviewed: 18/03/2026
A 14-year-old girl presents at the Emergency Department (ED) with a foreign body impaled below her right eye following a fall into a tree.
She is complaining of pain in the right upper teeth and upper lip, and numbness of the right cheek.
On examination, she has a large twig vertically impaled into her right cheek, entering just below the medial aspect of the eye, with around 4cm visible externally. The upper end is pushing against the eyebrow, and the lower is embedded in the cheek, by an unknown distance. There is no active bleeding. The eye appears to be intact.
She has full range of movement in all ocular muscles, normal visual acuity and peripheral vision. Trigeminal and facial nerve examination is unremarkable.
