Indian woman who inhaled nose pin well after surgery
By Geeta Pandey
When Varsha Sahu accidentally inhaled the screw of her nose pin two months ago, she wasn’t too concerned.
She thought the pin had gone into her stomach and would naturally pass through her digestive system.
But the metal object got lodged in her lung and caused her weeks of discomfort and shortness of breath until finally it was removed by doctors.
Like most married Hindu women in India, 35-year-old Varsha had been wearing a nose pin since her wedding “16-17 years back” as it’s considered a symbol of marital status.
“I didn’t know that the screw had come loose,” she told the BBC on the phone from her home in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.
“I was just chatting and I took a deep breath and I inhaled it. I had no idea it went into my airway. I thought it had gone into my stomach,” the mother of two teenaged boys added.
Dr Debraj Jash, a pulmonologist at Medica Superspecialty Hospital, who removed the pin from Varsha’s lung last month, described her case as “extremely rare” – Indian media have reported only two cases in the past decade.
“Sometimes we get cases where dry fruits or betel nuts have gone into people’s lungs, but most such cases involve young children or elderly people above 80. A woman patient in her 30s is an exception.”
