Boy’s life- saving heart op after choking on popcorn
A BOY suffered a collapsed lung and needed open- heart surgery – after he choked on popcorn.
Jordy Gordon was just two when he inhaled a kernel, obstructing his airways.
Parents Shona Macgillivray and Michael Gordon took him to hospital when he couldn’t stop coughing, thinking he had a chest infection.
Shona, 35, said: “The doctor randomly asked us if he had eaten any popcorn, and I said that he had the day before. He must have seen something like that before.”
Jordy coughed up the kernel and had treatment to reinflate his lung in February 2015. But a follow- up scan revealed a potentially fatal condition where the pulmonary veins were in the wrong place.
In July 2016 he underwent a 12- hour op at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow where surgeons cut through the chest wall to reposition the veins.
Shona, an early years practitioner, from Fort William, West Highlands, said: “I now think of that popcorn as both a blessing and a curse.
“Doctors told us that loads of things can go wrong during surgery, but if he didn’t have it he could just drop dead at some point maybe in his late teens or early 20s.”
Now seven, Jordy is back home with his mum, dad and brother Rhys, 10. Shona said: “He’s completely back to normal and can do anything a normal child can do.
“Before we knew anything was wrong, Jordy would sleep for three hours every afternoon.
“Now we know it is because he just wasn’t getting enough oxygen to his blood.”