Man Gets Dentures Stuck In His Lungs After Accidentally Swallowing Them

A 22-year-old man in US' Wisconsin narrowly escaped death after accidentally swallowing his silver-plated dentures that got lodged in his lungs. According to a New York Post report, he was wearing a row of silver fake teeth when he had an epileptic seizure and accidentally swallowed them. Following the accident, he suffered heavy coughing and wheezing and almost choked to death on his dentures.

He was rushed to the hospital where an X-ray revealed he had a 4.1 cm denture stuck in the airway of his lung. A case study detailing the incident was published this week in the Cureus medical journal.

After the tests were done, doctors rushed him for a bronchoscopy to remove the object. The procedure involved feeding a thin, lightened tube called a bronchoscope down the airway to dislodge the accessory. 

''A chest x-ray revealed a radiopaque foreign body measuring about 4.1 cm over the right main bronchus. The Foreign Body appeared to be horseshoe-shaped, with sharp and jagged edges resembling teeth. Bronchoscopy was performed to remove the inhaled foreign body. Despite traversing the vocal cords, retrieval was particularly challenging given the shape and size of the dental product. Unfortunately, the horseshoe-shaped object had sharp and jagged edges,'' the journal reads.

''After extensive discussion, an initial attempt with a flexible bronchoscope was agreed upon. After intubation with an 8.0 endotracheal tube, a flexible bronchoscope was introduced into the airway. Initially, under direct visualization, toothed forceps were used to dislodge the dental device from the bronchial wall. The resultant minor bleeding was controlled by instilling chilled saline,'' it further reads.

The doctors were successful in dislodging the false teeth from his lung airway. The patient, however, experienced bronchospasm – where muscles in the lung airway tighten – from the operation and was given steroid treatment before being discharged.

A few months back, a 34-year-old man in the United States swallowed an entire banana wrapped in a condom in a fit of rage. A case study describing his condom-related calamity, which is deemed to be the world's first case of its kind, was published in the journal Cureus.