This is not a drill.

Jozsi keeps the drill bit on a shelf to remind him of the breathtaking ordeal.

An Illinois man given new meaning to the term “iron lung” after accidently sucking a nearly inchlong dental drill tip down his airways, where it remained for over a week.

“I didn’t even notice it moving down. “All I felt was a cough,” Tom Jozsi, 60, said of the incident, which happened while the maintenance worker was having a cavity filled. He ingested the component after it broke off the tooth-hollowing device during the treatment, according to reports.

“I didn’t really even feel it going down. All I felt was a cough,” described Tom Jozsi.

Jozsi was then taken to the Aurora Medical Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where CT scans revealed that the tool tip had passed through the larynx and trachea and had been stuck near the base of his right lung.

“It was pretty far down on the right lower lobe of the lung,” said Abdul Alraiyes, the pulmonary doctor who presided over the excision.

A view to a drill . . . bit.
Robotic Bronchoscopy By AB. Alr

According to KFVS, the doctor assumed that the patient inhaled immediately before swallowing, which is why the drill was able to bore so deeply.

Unfortunately, because of the drill head’s difficult location, medical professionals worried they’d have to remove a section of Jozsi’s lung to prevent the intruder from injuring the surrounding tissue.

“What if he can’t get it out?” he worried. “And the true answer was that a portion of my lung would have to be removed.”

The drill bit post-extraction.
Robotic Bronchoscopy By AB. Alr

Fortunately, Alraiyes and his team were able to avoid that consequence by thinking beyond the box of surgical tools. They opted to withdraw the drill bit using a robotic ion catheter, which was designed for early cancer detection rather than foreign body removal.

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The accompanying video of the unique procedure, called a robot bronchoscopy, shows the gadget manoeuvring its way through Jozsi’s convoluted airways like a little spelunker. According to the clip’s commentary, the cybernetic surgeon was able to find and recover the drill point without injuring the patient.

CT-scans revealed that the tool tip had traveled far down his airways and embedded itself near the base of his right lung.

“I’ve never been happier in my life,” exclaimed Jozsi, who had been carrying the drill tip in his lung for four days.

According to reports, the Wisconsinite puts the bit on a shelf at home as a remembrance of the terrifying incident.

Doctors managed to extract the drill bit with a robotic ion catheter, which was designed for detecting cancer early rather than removing foreign bodies.

This isn’t the first time someone’s gills have been drilled. Alraiyes added that he’d spoken with doctors in Ohio and Michigan who claimed to have seen patients who’d swallowed tools.

According to reports, the Wisconsinite puts the bit on a shelf at home as a remembrance of the terrifying incident.

This isn’t the first time someone has had a drill in their gills. Alraiyes reported that he had contacted doctors in Ohio and Michigan who claimed to have seen patients who had swallowed the tool bit.