Story By: James King, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Real Press

A 23-month-old girl was treated in a Chinese hospital after she accidentally inhaled a two-centimetre chicken bone which became lodged in her airway.

Doctor Bian Peng, who is Deputy Director of Endoscopy at Changchun Children’s Hospital in Jilin, north-eastern China, said the child not named in reports and identified only by the nickname Tiantian was in a critical condition when bought into the hospital by her parents. (https://bit.ly/3a3utqr)

They said that the child had started to turn purple in the face the night before after being given some chicken to eat, forcing them to rush her into hospital.

The mother said that she suspected the child swallowed a bone.

Medics used a stethoscope to confirm that the child’s left lung sounded weak, and that there was possibly a foreign body in the airway. They also carried out a CT scan which then confirmed it.

As the child had not eaten anything since swallowing the chicken bone measuring two centimetres (0.8 inches) they were able to operate immediately.

Doctor Bian Peng told Jilin Television: “During the checkup we found a chicken bone in the main airway of the left lung, and then we use medical pliers to grab it and pull it out.”

He said it took about 15 minutes, and added that they were initially not sure what the foreign body was when they did the scan, and could only see that it was regular, hard, and stuck in the airways in a horizontal way. Only when they removed it could it be identified that it was a chicken bone. (https://bit.ly/3a3utqr)

The hospital made a statement about the matter publicly to warn parents to be more careful about what food they allowed their children to eat.

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