Photos: RRSS
Text: Hugo Leon
The doctors on duty at the Octavio de la Concepción de la Pedraja pediatric hospital in Holguín saved the life of a three-year-old boy who arrived at the center with a nail at the level of the right trunk bronchus on the night of Saturday, March 4.
The story, which was revealed on this day, had a happy ending thanks to the efforts of the medical team made up of nurses, ENT specialists, anesthetists and the operating room staff, who managed to extract the foreign body and save the minor after a “very hard” night.
As detailed to the local press by Dr. Mavil Isabel Benítez Fernández, a Second Degree Otorhinolaryngology specialist, the minor had accidentally aspirated a nail and it lodged in the right lung, making it an emergency case.
In these cases, the specialists are activated and act together due to the complexity of the operation, he explained.
The procedure carried out was an exploratory bronchoscopy, which according to the specialist is a very risky operation because it involves acting with a rigid 6.7-mm bronchoscope that enters through the mouth, passes through the larynx, the trachea and then reaches the lung, to where the foreign body is removed.
The dangers that the team had to overcome were not few. According to Benítez, in this type of intervention, mucosal tears, bleeding, perforation of the trachea and/or bronchi can occur up to cardiorespiratory arrest and the death of the patient. However, after 25 minutes of work with the minor, the nail was extracted.
That, however, was not the end. The doctor told the local newspaper Now that the team did not return home until around 5 in the morning, after leaving the patient stable in the Intensive Care Unit, where his possible hospital discharge would be evaluated.
As the relatives of the minor explained, the child first said that his throat “itched”, but the child’s mother insisted on the conversation and the child revealed that he had swallowed a nail. Upon learning of this, the patient was taken to the health area where X-ray studies were carried out that confirmed the presence of the foreign body, and medical mobilization began to save the minor.
Dr. Benítez assured that in 2023 the otolaryngology specialists have already had two other similar cases on their hands, the first in January with a patient who inhaled a grain of corn, and another in February who did the same with a bean.
The specialist recalled the importance of children always being supervised by an adult and that minors should not play alone, or have objects within their reach that could be inserted into their mouths, noses, etc.
