Hot dog stuck in trachea sends boy to hospital in critical condition

When paramedics arrived, the five year old was without a pulse after a piece of a hot dog became stuck in his airway.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
MDA Ambulance (photo credit: WIkicommons)
MDA Ambulance
(photo credit: WIkicommons)
A five-year-old boy from Bnei Ayish, near Gedera, is fighting for his life after choking on a hot dog that he ate at the home of neighbors on Tuesday night. Doctors at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot were trying to save the boy, who on Wednesday was in critical but stable condition.
 
The boy was eating hot dogs at a neighbors’ house, along with their daughter. When the food became stuck in his trachea and he turned blue, the neighbors called Magen David Adom. Paramedics took him to the hospital after performing resuscitation. Doctors worked all night to stabilize his condition.
 
The boy’s mother recalled that a few minutes after he began eating the hot dogs, the neighbor rushed over to say it was stuck and that she couldn’t pull it out. Dr. Eli Shapira, head of the pediatric intensive care unit, said the boy was in a state of clinical death, without a pulse, at the time when MDA paramedics arrived, resuscitated him and brought him to the emergency room. He was attached to a ventilator and anesthetized at the hospital after doctors worked to save him.
Children up to the age of six should not be given hot dogs or other foods (or objects) that can go down the trachea instead of the esophagus and block the air tube. All hot dog packages have a such a warning printed on them. Instead, frankfurters should be cut lengthwise instead of into rounds.