“Quickly, Dr. Nicholas, come to emergency ward!” António’s voice was filled with tension, and by the arm he pulled we away from syphilis patient whom I was examining. Moments later I confronted a gasping small child, Gabriel. With each breath she chest retracted and with my stethoscope I heard hardly any air moving into her lungs. The father in distress explained how Gabriel was eating salted fish when she began choking and coughing.
Clearly, Gabriel’s airway was obstructed and her skin become progressively dark as oxygen faded from her blood stream. We carried Gabriel several paces to the operating room. By now her body was limp from oxygen deprivation. We rolled him onto her back, and Annalese Oleson, our skilled surgeon, slid a laryngoscope into Gabriel’s mouth and larynx. There, just below her vocal cords, lay the tail of a fish, blocking the passage into Gabriel’s lungs. After quite a struggle she grasped it with forceps and ‘fished’ the tail out of her mouth. Gabriel’s little body was still limp, but a just a few chest compressions started air flowing once again, and later Gabriel was alert and crying in his father’s arms.
A little later at lunch the cafeteria offered fish on my plate. I passed!