In a rare life-saving procedure, doctors at the KMC Hospital in Mangaluru used a powerful magnet to save the life of a nine-yearold girl who was wheeled in with a magnet stuck in her windpipe.

The girl was brought to the hospital with respiratory distress after she had aspirated a toy magnet while playing at home. Since the object was stuck in the windpipe, doctors faced a complicated situation. An x-ray showed the magnet was lodged in the primary bronchi of the right lung. Dr Jayateertha Joshi, paediatric surgeon, decided to immediately shift the child to the operation theatre and perform a bronchoscope, a procedure to check for abnormalities such as injury and bleeding to the girl’s airways.
 

“We were presented with several challenges while dealing with this case,” said Joshi. “The chances of an endoscopy failing were high and removing the magnet with forceps was tricky given its smooth surface. After several rounds of discussion with our anaesthesiologist Dr Sunil we realized that removing such a large object could have obstructed the main wind pipe (trachea), leading to difficulty in making the child breathe under anaesthesia.”

Joshi revealed that the team decided to obtain a stronger magnet and move the one lodged in the girl’s windpipe to the surface, while keeping the bronchoscope in the windpipe to track the object.

“When it reached the inlet of the wind pipe, removal became easy,” Joshi said. “The child was discharged the next day.”

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