Boy undergoes epic operation to remove nail from lung

It was a nail-biting scenario.

A 3-year-old boy in Cuba had to undergo life-saving emergency surgery after accidentally swallowing a large nail.

“This is a very risky procedure,” said Dr. Mavil Isabel Benítez Fernández, a ENT specialist who presided over the operation in the Octavio de la Concepción y de la Pedraja Paediatric Hospital in Holguin, local outlet Ahora reported.

The case came to light after the tot informed his mother that his throat was sore, according to Jam Press.

She transported her boy to a local clinic, where subsequent X-rays revealed the shocking source of his discomfort: a foreign object lodged in his left lung.

Alarmed, the petrified parent took her pride and joy to aforementioned hospital so they could relieve him of his respiratory interloper.

To ensure the operation went smoothly, the hospital assembled a team of specialists, who setup the operating room in advance so he could undergo surgery upon arrival, Ahora reported.

Safety protocols were paramount given that they performed an exploratory bronchoscopy, a delicate operation that involves threading a rigid 6.7-mm bronchoscope through the larynx, the trachea, and into the lung to extract the foreign body.

Fernández said that botching such an intricate procedure could result in bleeding, tracheal or bronchial ruptures, cardiorespiratory arrest, and even death.

Thankfully, in this instance, the nail was removed in 25 minutes sans complications, whereupon the patient was transferred to the hospital’s ICU in stable condition.

In a similar case last month, surgeons had to were dumbfounded to discover a screw in an elderly patient’s lung after she inhaled it following a a series of dental treatments that date back nearly a year ago.

The 70-year-old Spanish woman realized something was amiss after experiencing several respiratory infections for no apparent reason.

Accompanying footage captured via bronchoscope — a flexible tube with a camera — showed the component nestled in her respiratory tissue like a missing part from a cyborg.

According to the case study, the woman, whose name was not disclosed, seemed to have inhaled the metal amid a series of dental treatments that date back nearly a year ago.

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She visited the Hospital Vithas Vigo in Pontevedra, where a chest X-ray reportedly revealed the source of her discomfort: A 9-millimeter metal screw lodged in her lung.

She had initially been outfitted with two replacement bone implants, followed by healing caps. The final implant was placed two months later.

Unfortunately, the senior had no recollection of ingesting the screwy surgery souvenir, which had reportedly been trapped in her respiratory system for at least eight months.

Doctors were able to remove the foreign body from her body in just a few hours with forceps.

The woman was subsequently discharged and appeared to be recovering well, Jam Press noted.

This isn’t the first time somebody seemingly screwed themselves by getting an object stuck in their lungs. In September, a piercing addict who lost his nose ring was horrified to discover it had been inside his lung for five years.