Not hayfever – it was a dart up my nose… for 44 years

HAVING suffered from a blocked nose and headaches for most of his life, Steve Easton put it all down to hay fever.

But after a massive sneeze aged 51, Mr Easton finally discovered the reason for his almost constant sniffles – he had had a toy dart stuck up one nostril for 44 years.

The mildly decomposed sucker tip – the size of a ten-cent coin – had been there since Mr Easton inadvertently inhaled it while playing with a toy dart gun aged seven.

Mr Easton said: ‘I started a sneezing fit and it came out my left nostril.

‘I thought, “What’s this? Where the hell has this come from?” and pulled out this rubber sucker. I was completely blown away.’

When he told his parents of his discovery in late March, Mr Easton from Surrey in the south of England was shocked to learn they had taken him to hospital as a boy in 1971 after noticing a dart tip was missing and worrying he had inhaled it – only to be told by doctors there was nothing there.

His mother Pat, 77, said: ‘I took him to the hospital and they spent a lot of time looking for it but in the end they said perhaps it was a mistake. I knew it wasn’t and it’s always worried me and now it has suddenly shot out.’

Luckily for Mr Easton, the dart hasn’t caused any serious problems.

‘I brought it up with my doctor and he was amazed like everybody else but said there had been no harm done,’ he said. ‘It had been there in my nasal cavity for 44 years. I was completely unaware that it was in my nose for that long. I feel no different now. I wonder if there’s anything else up there.’