An 8-year-old boy who had accidentally inhaled a whistle collapsed outside the operation theatre when his oxygen saturation dropped to 39. He was operated on at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital on Saturday.
On Wednesday, a CT scan showed that the boy’s lungs were functioning normally. He will be discharged on Thursday.
“Surgeries for removing foreign objects from the lungs are not rare, but this surgery became very complicated since the boy collapsed and his oxygen saturation dropped to 39,” said Diptanshu Mukherjee, an associate professor at the ENT department of the hospital.
Mohammad Arman Shamsi, a resident of Canning Street, drank water and tried to vomit thinking that the 2cm-long whistle would come out, but only blood-tinged watery vomitus came out, said Mukherjee. His family brought Arman to the hospital.
“An X-ray was done at the emergency but the whistle could not be seen. The boy then came to us and we advised immediate surgery. But he collapsed outside the operation theatre and his face turned blue because of hypoxia (low oxygen supply to blood),” Mukherjee said.
It was impossible to insert a bronchoscope and take out the whistle in that state. He would not have survived if the oxygen saturation remained at that level, the doctor said.
A team of doctors worked for about an hour to push up the oxygen level. When it reached 90, they inserted the bronchoscope and brought out the whistle. “It took only 30 seconds to take it out,” said Mukherjee.
Arman was kept on mechanical ventilation for 24 hours since doctors feared he may have suffered lung injury. He was shifted to a ward on Tuesday and kept under observation.
“He is now maintaining 100 per cent oxygen saturation in room air,” said Mukherjee.
