Doctors were able to successfully remove a drill bit from an Antioch man’s lungs after the man accidentally inhaled the bit during a dental procedure.
Tom Jozsi, 60, went for a routine dental exam on March 18.
He said in an interview published on Monday with WISN 12 that he was getting his tooth filled that day.
“The next thing I knew, I was told I swallowed this tool. So I didn’t even really feel it going down. All I did really was feel the cough,” Jozsi said.
Jozsi went to the Vista Medical Center in Lindenhurst but X-rays did not show the location of the object, Lake Geneva Regional News reported.
The man told WISN that doctors later told him he did not swallow it, he actually inhaled the drill bit deep into his airway.
Jozsi was transferred to Aurora Medical Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Normal scopes could not reach the bit due to how deep it was in his lungs.
Dr. Abdul Alraiyes and Dr. Hasnain Bawaadam used a machine, which is used for early cancer detection, to pull the object out.
If doctors did not have the Ion robot biopsy machine, Jozsi would have had to undergo major surgery to remove part of his lung, Alraiyes said.
“I was never so happy as when I woke up in the ER and Dr. Alraiyes came into the room and even with a mask on I could there was a smile under that mask. He said he got it and shook a pill container with it in it,” Jozsi told Lake Geneva Regional News.