Doctors proceeded to perform a bronchoscopy, inserting a thin tube down his throat and into the left lung, where they unearthed and removed a “mysterious object” – a toy whistle. (New England Journal of Medicine)
One four-year-old boy in India is coughing normally again, after doctors revealed that a toy whistle that became lodged in his throat has since been removed.
On August 8, The New England Journal of Medicine reported that the unnamed youngster and his family arrived at an otorhinolaryngology outpatient clinic last year seeking answers for his persistent, two-day cough which had an “intermittent whistling character.”
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An eight-second of clip of the boy’s “whistling cough” that has since been viewed over 65,000 times on Facebook.
An X-ray of the four-year-old’s chest revealed that his left lung was hyperinflated, which can be caused by a blockage in the air passage to the lungs or medical conditions including asthma and cystic fibrosis, Live Science and Mayo Clinic report.
Doctors proceeded to perform a bronchoscopy, inserting a thin tube down his throat and into the left lung, where they unearthed and removed a “mysterious object” – a toy whistle. According to the boy’s parents, their son had indeed been playing with a whistle before his coughing began, Live Science reports, and it was proved that he accidentally inhaled it.
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"Foreign bodies in the airways are common. But the whistling nature of cough is exceptionally rare," Dr. Pirabu Sakthivel, a senior resident of head and neck surgery and oncology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, told the outlet.
The next day, an X-ray illustrated that the boy’s left lung had deflated and returned back to normal.
Following up with a check-up one year later, the boy was in good health and his lungs were no longer whistling.