In a rare case, doctors save a dying patient choked with seekh kabab!

Gurugram: Far from what this succulent kebab is associated with, seekh kebab can also turn into a weapon of destruction with no prior notice! Yes, in an unexpected turn of events a 69 year old man choked on a six inch seekh kebab! This event culminated into a near death situation when he was rushed into the medical emergency. He was eventually wheeled into the emergency of Gurugram based Artemis Hospital with the patient’s inability to speak or breathe. There was absolutely no air entry in the lungs and he was barely maintaining oxygen levels in the body.

The doctors took over from this point and within five minutes of presenting him in the ER, they got onto the job in full swing, performing a lifesaving procedure called tracheostomy to give artificial passage to breathe from the neck. Tracheostomy also proved inadequate as the large kebab was found to be obstructing below the artificial passage. This posed a huge challenge for surgeons and anaesthetist to maintain life during complete obstruction even as routine ENT instruments were of limited use due to the large nature of such a block.

(On the left) The actual image of seekh kebab recovered post the successful surgical operation of the patient.

Thinking on their feet, the doctors resorted to some out of the routine technique and an abdominal laparoscopic grasper (used in gall bladder removal surgery) was used to deliver the impacted seekh kebab from trachea (wind pipe).  It is a well-established fact that seekh kebab aspiration causes one of the most severe choking and people usually do not survive it. Past cases, published in UK revealed that such kind of choking have had calamitous outcome with patients getting no time to reach any hospital. However this was an unprecedented case, which not only made it to the hospital but with excellent team work between ER, Anesthesia, ENT and some innovative thinking, saved the life of the patient.

Smaller foreign bodies can sometimes be expelled out by exerting pressure on the chest (heimlichs maneuver ) but this case called for no other option but to be removed endoscopically . No doubt kebab is a “food worth dying for” But I never anticipated it this way, exclaimed Dr Shashidhar Tatavarthy- Sr. Consultant-ENT (Surgery), Artemis Hospitals after the patient’s complete recovery.

Artemis Hospital, established in 2007, spread across 9 acres, is a 400 bed; state-of-the-art multi-speciality hospital located in Gurugram.