A 57-year-old woman needed emergency surgery to repair the oesophageal tear (Picture: Getty Images/RooM RF)

A woman was sent home from hospital with a tear in her throat because doctors could not believe a mango could have caused such damage.

The unnamed 57-year-old was struggling to swallow after eating the fruit – the seed of which ripped open her oesophagus.

She told doctors at Epsom Hospital, Surrey, what she had eaten, but they considered there to be a ‘low risk’ because it is so soft.

Instead, they put it down to a scratch or her stomach lining being irritated.

Within days she started showing signs of sepsis and was unable to swallow.

A CT scan revealed that she had an oesophageal tear and had air in her chest.

She underwent surgery in Guildford to remove the seed and stayed in hospital for a week on antibiotics, according to the Surrey Live.

Following her ordeal, the woman complained to the hospital trust about the treatment.

New guidelines have now been put in place over what foods can cause internal tears (Picture: Getty Images)

Following an investigation they compiled a slide called The Deadly Mango for the hospital’s board meeting .

Dr Richard Jennings, the chief medical officer of the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: ‘From something ridiculously obscure and exotic, and unlikely ever to happen again, the trust has created pragmatic and useful learning points.

‘I was also very happy, having felt anxious reading the title, to find it was a “potentially deadly mango”.’

New guidelines have now been implemented so internal tears aren’t just explored based on whether the patient had eaten hard foods such as chicken bones.

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Doctors turned the woman away at first, failing to accept that a woman’s throat ripped open with a mango seed, believing only hard foods could cause any damage.