SMALL DART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 113, 14 May 1937, Page 8

SMALL DART.

LODGED IN LUNG.

NEEDLE AND CORK.

OPERATION TO-DAY.

SECOND THIS WEEK.

About half-past eight o'clock this morning Douglas McLellan, a youth aged 17, and residing at Abbots Hoad, Remuera, walked into the X-ray department of the Wallace Ward at the Auckland Hospital.

A few minutes later he had liecn X-rayed, and when the plate was developed it revealed that in the left lung was a home-made dart —a needle about an inch and a quarter in length, on the end of which was a small piece of cork. When "shooting." the youth had accidentally drawn the dart through the tube, similar to that of a pea-shooter, and swallowed it.

A prominent honorary surgeon to the hospital this morning performed an operation on McLellan and removed the dart. The operation occupied throe minutes.

It is a remarkable coincidence that in less than a week two similar and unusual operations should be performed at the Auckland Hospital.

On Saturday last a' boy, six years of age, Russell Derrick Hill, of Bombay, was X-rayed and the plate revealed that he had swallowed a needle. On Tuesday the same honorary surgeon who operated to-day removed the needle in exactly one minute 35 seconds.

Last year considerable publicity was given to the case of a child in Melbourne who had swallowed n nail, and was sent to America to have it removed. At the time there were surgeons in Auckland who could not admit that there was anything very remarkable Ml performing the necessary operation, and some support is piven their contention by the fact that swallowed needles have Veen removed at the Auckland Hospital twice this week. A few years ago a staple was successfully removed from the lung of a man. That staple had been in tlie lung some 30 years.

Thp instrument used in the operation is known as a bronchoscope.