A 12 Year Old boy recently underwent surgery to remove a swallowed fish in central India’s Khargone district.
Anil Barela was playing a common game amongst his young peers in a local river where the object of the game was to try and catch live fish and swallow them whole.
This isn’t normally an issue, however Anil somehow managed to actually inhale the nine centimeter fish placing the fish in his lungs rather than his stomach.
The young boy quickly realized that he was having trouble breathing and was rushed to a nearby hospital. The small fish had caused a massive lung obstruction, thereby resulting in a rapid decline in blood oxygen levels causing the doctors to operate immediately on the struggling boy.
According to Dr. Pramod Jhawar, the operation lasted a total of 45 minutes while they removed the fish from the lung.
The doctor also stated that “the fish was alive and taking its last breath when the bronchoscopy was done.”
Unfortunately, the fish did not live much longer once removed from the young boy’s lung.
Information regarding the boys current health is not available, though it is known that Anil made it through ok and it was deemed a successful surgery.
The video shown below is the bronchoscopy that the doctors used to view exactly what was obstructing Anil’s lung when they brought him in. The video is only in Hindi, but the small fish can be seen to be very active in the lung as the exam is administered.
