Be careful while you eat lest you choke
ENT specialists tell DC that regardless of one's age and position, several persons have died of pulmonary aspiration.
Thrissur: Eating even delicious food can be dangerous if one is not careful. Many have died after food items got stuck in the windpipe. Dr Lakshmi Mohan, 29, psychiatrist at the Mental Health Centre at West Fort in Thrissur, was having a vegetable snack at the food court in Sobha City mall at Puzhakkal along with her husband, a bank manager, here around 8.30 p.m. on Sunday when the food choked her respiratory system.
She fell unconscious and was rushed to the Amala Medical College and Hospital in a few minutes. But she died before reaching the hospital. Her colleagues said that she was suffering from cough and had a minor respiratory problem. After post-mortem at the Medical College here, her body was taken to her home at Paravur in Ernakulam on Monday afternoon.
ENT specialists have told DC that regardless of one’s age and position, several persons have died due to pulmonary aspiration. Proper care has to be taken even while breast-feeding children as there is the possibility of milk entering the windpipe. Well-known journalist and commentator Praful Bidwai died last year after choking on his food. Doctors say that if the food gets stuck, it can create a panic situation.
The immediate first aid is to lift the person whose windpipe is stuck with food particle and push hard on the stomach by holding from behind. “Normally, in most cases, the windpipe does not get fully closed and only a part of it in the throat that carries air to the lungs will be shut. If pressure is given on the stomach, the food which has got stuck at the top of the windpipe could be brought out,” Dr Ajayan Varkey, additional professor, ENT, Thrissur Medical College Hospital, said.
If such a first aid is not successful, the next thing the doctors do during medical emergency is to create a hole in the throat below the area where the food is stuck using special needles to make air reach the lungs and prevent the patient from suffocating to death.
Dr Varkey said that some of our ways of eating need to be changed. “It is a common practice among the people to watch television and eat, or talk among each other and laugh. Such ways of consuming food is risky,” he noted.
Vomiting in an inebriated stage is also dangerous. The food coming out of the stomach may get aspirated, thereby blocking the respiratory system leading to death.