A team of doctors at the Children’s Medicine Center saved 8-month-old Svyatoslav, who nearly choked on fir tree branches.
The boy was urgently taken to the “Ohmatdyt” hospital from Radekhiv district of Lviv region. His mother noticed that the child started choking while playing near the Christmas tree. She found pieces of paper in the child’s mouth, but his breathing did not recover, so they called the medics.
At the hospital, doctors detected noisy, wheezing breathing, but the X-ray did not show a clear cause. The clinical picture indicated a foreign body in the airways. The team decided to perform diagnostic bronchoscopy.
During the procedure, doctors found a pine branch in the bifurcation area of the trachea and main bronchi. It was removed in parts. “A bit more, and the airways could have been completely blocked. The consequences could have been fatal,” says surgeon Oleksandr Kolodiy.
After removing the foreign body, breathing normalized. The next day, Svyatoslav went home without complications. Doctors emphasize that if there is wheezing or difficult breathing in a child, it is necessary to seek hospital assistance immediately.