Man accidentally inhales drill during visit to the dentist

Nobody likes their trip to the dentist, but one Illinois man certainly has a better reason than most after he inhaled the dentist's drill bit during a procedure that ended up lodged in his lung.

Tom Jozsi, a 60-year-old maintenance worker was getting his tooth filled in when he accidentally inhaled the tool as he coughed.

“I was at the dentist getting a tooth filled, and then next thing I know I was told I swallowed this tool," he told WISN-TV.

It's hard to imagine what sensation must have felt, so Jozsi who explained what I felt like at the time, "I didn't really even feel it going down. All I felt was a cough. When they did the CT scan they realized, 'You didn't swallow it. You inhaled it,'" he said.

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The CT scan found that the drill bit was lodged one inch deep into Jozsi's lung, Dr Abdul Alraiyes, at Aurora Medical Center-Kenosha in Wisconsin said it was so deep into the lung that surgery was required to remove it. However traditional tools wouldn't be able to reach it and if they couldn't take out the drill bit alone then they may have had to remove part of Jozsi's lung.

But instead, the medical team had another plan as they decided to use a minuscule robotic bronchoscope that is typically used to detect the early stages of cancer in the lung.

YouTube/Robotic Bronchoscopy By AB. Alraiyes

Thanks to the device, Dr. Alraiyes was able to carefully remove the drill bit without harming Jozsi or needing to remove a part of his lung.

A video uploaded to the doctor's YouTube channel shows his intricate work - which looks like a much more serious game of Operation - as he dislodged and removed the part from Jozsi.

After the surgery, Jozsi was delighted that the surgery was a success, "I was never so happy as when I opened my eyes, and I saw him with a smile under that mask shaking a little plastic container with the tool in it," he said.

Now, he has the drill bit on the shelf at home as a memento to remember the remarkable story.

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