With endoscopy, doctors safely remove safety pin from three-year-old’s throat

MUMBAI: It was a pins-andneedles moment for doctors from the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) department of the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital as they had to telescopically extricate a safety pin from the throat of a three-year-old girl last week. But their experience and expertise saved the day for the toddler and her parents. The little one had playfully tugged at her mother's mangalsutra at play and put it into her mouth and in the process, accidentally swallowed an open safety pin attached to it. Later, the mother realised something was wrong with the child as she was crying continuously and would not even drink water. “The parents immediately rushed to their paediatrician who asked them to get a chest X-ray. Shockingly, the Xray revealed a safety pin was in the child's throat, which was causing the problem,” said a doctor at KEM. The paediatrician asked the parents to immediately go to KEM hospital, where doctors managed to safely remove the pointy obstruction from the child's throat, using the telescopic method. Dr Nilam Sathe, head of the ENT department, KEM hospital, said, as soon as the patient was brought to the hospital, they immediately put her on medication and did a runthrough of the options available for the least invasive procedure they could carry out to quickly put the child out of her misery with minimal damage. They were anxious about pus formation, as the pointed tip was in close contact with the lining of the child's throat, which could have proved fatal. “We used endoscopy for the removal of the pin. Had it not been removed in time, the infant could have died of internal bleeding. Now she is doing fine and can eat normally,” Dr Sathe said. “Parents must exercise great care at all times when there are little children around and must do their best to prevent such dangerous objects from falling into the hands of their children,” cautioned Dr Sathe.