Necklace bead stuck in girl’s trachea for three years finally found and removed

Family brought six-year-old to emergency room after she suffered for two years from repeated bouts with pneumonia and breathing problems that were not eliminated by antibiotics.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Necklace bead stuck three years in a little girl’s trachea finally found and removed at Rehovot hospital (photo credit: KAPLAN MEDICAL CENTER)
Necklace bead stuck three years in a little girl’s trachea finally found and removed at Rehovot hospital
(photo credit: KAPLAN MEDICAL CENTER)
A bead from a necklace that had been unnoticed and stuck for three years in a girl’s trachea -- causing pneumonia and respiratory distress and possibly life threatening -- was removed by doctors at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot this week.
 
Yael Hayat, the mother of six-year-old Mika, said that she and her husband “received her as a gift. Now she’ll be able to live like a regular child.”
 
The Rehovot family recently brought Mika to the emergency room after she suffered for two years from repeated bouts with pneumonia and breathing problems that were not eliminated by antibiotics. Kaplan pulmonologist Dr. Avigdor Hevroni, who performed the bronchosocopy to remove the bead from the end of her trachea, managed to find what no other doctor had. She was hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care ward and released a few days later after the foreign object was removed.
 
Her mother, a nursing student at Kaplan, said Mika was unable to play sports or go to other activities because of her breathing problems. “I even took her out of a floor-exercise club because she was coughing so badly and couldn’t run. Over three years, we took her to many doctors who recommended antibiotics and inhalers, but nothing helped. When we reached Dr. Hevroni, who was recommended to us a few months ago, he immediately dealt seriously with the problem and pulled the bead out. Everyone was amazed.”
 
The pulmonologist said he realized quickly her condition was not due to asthma, as conventional treatment did not help. Instead, he suspected a foreign object was stuck in her breathing tube. He performed an endoscopy of her bronchi and, through a tiny camera, found the bead and nudged it out. There was pus, but fortunately, the trachea was not completely blocked, he said.
 
He called on parents and medial staffers to consider foreign objects when a respiratory complaint returns and does not respond to conventional treatment.