Biting into her favourite sandwich at one of Delhi’s popular coffee shops left 21-year-old Mansee Kakkar’s with a two-inch-long rusted metallic wire piece embedded in her food pipe.
After she vomited blood, she was rushed to two hospitals where she wasn’t treated. Fortunately, doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital were successfully able to operate and retrieve the wire and set Mansee on the road to recovery.
Now, five days after the incident and back to her daily routine, Mansee recollecting the incident to The Hindu said, “On April 24, I met a couple of my friends at our favourite hangout, a well-known coffee shop. I ordered a sandwich. The first bite itself felt funny, but I thought that I wasn’t chewing my food properly. I somehow gulped down a few bites, but what followed was my worst nightmare come true.’’
“Almost immediately after I ate the sandwich, I had excruciating pain in my throat and then I could not even swallow my spit or a drop of water. I vomited blood. My friends then rushed me to a nearby hospital.’’
Mansee said the doctors at the government hospital told her that she might have eaten a stale sandwich and advised her to get an X-ray done due to the severe symptoms.
“My friends then shifted me to a private hospital where they told us that they did not have adequate medical equipment to deal with my case,” she added.
She was finally admitted at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital around 8 p.m. on April 24 and an emergency operation was performed at 11 p.m. The patient was discharged the following morning.
The hospital’s consultant at the ENT Department, Dr. Nitin Aggarwal, who treated the patient, said: “The patient’s X-ray showed a two-inch-long rusted metallic wire piece which had embedded into the oesophagus (food pipe).’’
“This metallic foreign body was precariously placed and if surgery was not performed immediately, it could have perforated the food pipe and caused serious consequences. Therefore, we opted to rush the patient in for an emergency operation,’’ he noted.
An endoscopic oesophagoscopy was performed. “In this procedure we go into food pipe under the guidance of camera and extract the foreign body,’’ he said.
The metallic wire piece was then handed over to the family, which is now preparing to file a case of gross negligence against the multi-national cafe chain.
