‘You inhaled it’: Man undergoes rare procedure to remove dentist’s drill bit from his lung after visit

Doctors said if they were unable to retrieve the one-inch metal bit, they’d have to remove part of the 60-year-old’s lung

With one breath, an Illinois man’s trip to the dentist last month very quickly shifted from being a routine visit to one requiring an emergency stop at the nearby hospital after he accidentally inhaled his dentist’s drill bit.

WISN-TV reported that Tom Jozsi, 60, was in the middle of getting his tooth filled when his dentist informed him that he had inhaled a piece from the tool that he held mere inches from his face.

“I didn’t really even feel it going down. All I felt was a cough,” the 60-year-old maintenance worker told the news outlet. Later, at Aurora Medical Center-Kenosha Wisconsin, doctors were able to confirm what Mr Jozsi’s dentist had first suspected while he sat in his chair.

“When they did the CT scan they realised, ‘You didn’t swallow it. You inhaled it,’” Mr Jozsi recounted. The one-inch bit, the doctors determined, became lodged in his lung after Mr Jozsi inhaled it and then proceeded to cough.

Dr Abdul Alraiyes, whose team helped recover the misplaced drill bit from the 60-year-old’s lung, told WISN-TV that because the bit was buried so deep in the man’s organ, they weren’t able to use regular scopes for the procedure.

Fearing that if they weren’t able to retrieve the metal piece they’d have to opt for the less desirable option, removing part of Mr Jozsi’s lung, the doctor decided to attempt the retrieval with a new device, one which, until that point, had primarily been used for detecting early cancer in patients.

“It’s more for early detection of cancer, especially lung cancer,” Dr Alraiyes told the news outlet.

The team then used the catheter-like tool to manoeuvre through the narrow passages of Mr Jozsi’s respiratory tract and were able to successfully grab onto the metal bit, all without causing any extra damage to the man’s lungs or airways.

“I was never so happy as when I opened my eyes and saw him with a smile under that mask shaking a little plastic container with the tool in it,” Mr Jozsi said.

He admits that he now keeps the bit on a shelf in his home as a trophy of sorts to commemorate the whole experience that could’ve seen part of his lung removed had it not been for the ingenuity of Dr Alraiyes and his team at Aurora Medical Center-in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The doctor confirmed to the news outlet that he’d heard of colleagues in both Michigan and Ohio reporting similar cases as the one Mr Jozsi experienced in his dentist’s office last month.