Woman who suddenly became mute for 12 years finds out it was because she accidentally swallowed a coin

An author who suddenly became mute when she was 13 years old, discovered 12 years later that it was because she accidentally swallowed a coin without knowing about it.

Marie McCreadie, now 48, was mute from age 13 to 25. The  Australian from Wollongong, Sydney, was suddenly struck with an inability to speak. Doctors had no explanation for her condition. They thought it was a result of a former experience of bronchitis with laryngitis but when she recovered from the illnesses, her voice didn’t return.

One day, 12 years after she suddenly went mute, Marie started coughing up blood from her mouth. She was rushed to the hospital where the doctors removed a red lump covered with mucus and blood. When they rinsed it off, they found a threepence coin.

Marie has now written a book titled Voiceless to detail the journey of losing and then regaining her voice.

She tells Metro UK: "It was lodged in my throat for 12 years, from the ages of 13 to 25. The doctors were all stumped; they had no explanation for my illness other than to 'rinse with salt water'. They carried out tests, bloods, x-ray, but nothing was discovered. Eventually, they just swept it under the carpet and told me to get on with life."

Marie explained that at the time, in 1984, her story received a lot of media coverage, with reporters speculating that it was a coin from a Christmas pudding – an old tradition to bring luck. But that had little weight as Marie had become sick during Easter. Doctors theorised that it may have been a penny lost in a bottled or canned drink and swallowed without suspicion.

Maried said: "If it was in a cake, or similar food, you’d think that I would have crunched down on it"

She continued: "One day, 12 years later, I was at work when I started coughing and bleeding from the mouth. My work colleague called for an ambulance. Doctors then found the threepence coin. I was upset because I didn’t know what was going on. I had started making little noises, moaning, crying. It didn’t take me long to begin to talk again as I had been miming words all my life. In effect, I had been talking just with no sound was coming out. The problem I had was with breathing, I had to learn to breathe properly to push the voice out.

"After I was seen by an ENT (ear, nose and throat specialist) they made me rest for a week and then off to speech therapy."

Marie shares her story in her new book and details how she became accustomed to a life of miming, signing and typing, the latter of which became her full-time job.