Kid finds missing Lego in his nose – two years after it disappeared

Everything is awesome for a New Zealand family who’ve found a piece of missing Lego - two years after it disappeared up their son’s nose.

When Sameer Anwaar was seven-years-old, he shoved the tiny hand of a Lego minifigure into his nose, where it disappeared, his father Mudassir told The Guardian.

A doctor was unable to see it or retrieve it, and suggested that perhaps Sameer could have swallowed it, or it might have already fallen out.

As the little piece of plastic wasn’t hurting Sameer or causing any discomfort, the family didn’t give it much thought until last weekend, when Sameer sniffed a plate of cupcakes and shrieked in pain.

His parents thought he’d snorted cupcake crumbs and “his mother helped him blow his nose and then this thing came out that was missing for the last two years,” Mudassir told the New Zealand Herald.

"It was shock, you know? And it had a bit of fungus on it."

The boy couldn’t have been more chuffed. Mudassir says his son was wide-eyed when he saw the long-missing Lego piece.

"Mum, I found the Lego! You were telling me it wasn't there, but it was there," Sameer told his mother excitedly.

When his son was three, Mudassir told The Guardian, he pushed an imitation pearl up into his nostril but his parents managed to retrieve it.

The family are considering donating the piece to a museum, Mudassir joked.

Toy story

Kids have loved Lego for generations because it’s incredibly hardy. In fact, one study, at the University of Plymouth, found that the toys, which often wash up on beaches, can last in the ocean for up to 1,300 years before they break down!

Another study, conducted in 2018 and published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, found that it takes 1,71 days for the head of a Lego minifigure to pass through the human digestive system. Six paediatricians volunteered to swallow the little yellow heads in the interest of science.

Laid end to end, the number of Lego bricks sold in a year would reach more than five times round the world.

There are approximately 80 Lego bricks for every person on earth, as any parent who has walked barefoot through a play area can confirm.

The name Lego was coined by the toy’s inventor, Ole Kirk Christiansen, from the first two letters of the Danish words leg godt, which mean “play well”.

Sources: The Guardian, New Zealand Herald, National Geographic Kids, NY Post