NEW ORLEANS — You might not like the sound of the dentist's drill. Many people don't, but one Gulf Coast man has a whole different reason to not like the drill, that goes way beyond the way it sounds.
And it was technology that quickly helped him. It was supposed to be a simple trip to the dentist for 77-year-old J. Miller. The retired Biloxi attorney needed a crown fixed in April, but during the procedure, a piece of the drill flew down his throat.
“I talked about it with my dentist, and we decided the best thing to do would, just go home, and forget about it,” J.W. Miller said by phone.
But was it in his digestive tract, or airways. Hours later, the dentist had J. meet him at the Biloxi Hospital E.R. The CAT scan confirmed it had gone down the airways and was lodged in the very bottom of his right lung.
Later that afternoon, Mr. Miller was in an ambulance leaving the Biloxi E.R., and headed to the O.R. at East Jefferson General Hospital.
“Well, I was concerned about myself, like a normal person would be,” Miller laughed. “I wasn't overly scared, or anything like that. I'm a grown man. I'm an old man.”
“In this patient's case, if we weren't able to get to it, we'd have to consult one of our surgery colleagues. They would take him to the operating room, make an incision, and then remove the part of the lung that had the foreign body in it,” explained Tulane interventional pulmonologist Dr. Ramsy Abdelghani, Medical Director for Interventional Pulmonology at EJGH.
However, Mr. Miller did not need traditional surgery with a scalpel. Dr. Abdelghani used the latest technology, the Ion Robotic Bronchoscope, which is usually used to get lung tumors in early stages, giving people a higher chance to be cured.
“It's been a huge game changer for myself, and my patients. Honestly, we're able to navigate to any lesion we want to in the lungs. We're able to access any part of the lung now, which before was much more challenging,” said Dr. Abdelghani.
But in this case, Dr. Abdelghani used it to retrieve the drill bit. The procedure took 30 minutes under general anesthesia, and Mr. Miller was on his way back home to the Gulf Coast later the same day.
The doctor has seen other things in the lung, like a tooth after a dental visit that he had to remove.
“We can remove change, chicken bones, fish bones, dental bridges, some grills one time, so a lot of very interesting things that people inhale, unfortunately,” said Dr. Abdelghani.
With no need for traditional surgery, Mr. Miller healed fast. His cough is gone. He avoided complications and infections if that small piece of metal had stayed there.
There have been a few other cases of this happening to dental patients in other states.
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