WHISTLE SOUNDS IN BOY’S LUNG

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 230, 26 June 1935, Page 8

WHISTLE SOUNDS IN BOY’S LUNG

Life Saved by Operation

UNUSUAL WELLINGTON CASE In 'Wellington Hospital Is a boy whose life was endangered, and also saved, by a small metal whistle. Ou Monday evening the whistle was removed from the boy’s lung where it had lain, deeply embedded, after he gulped it in while riding his bicycle. Modern hospital achievement is such .that there is nothing very remarkable about the removal of foreign bodies — even whistles—from the lung. But the remarkable feature of this case was that the whistle, unlike the famous "little wooden whistle” (that would’n whistle) sounded its own timely warning to its unhappy 12-year-old owner. The boy, it seems, was in the habit, when' riding his bicycle, of holding the whistle hetwen his lips and using it as a warning signal. Ten days ago he was pedalling along, shrilling at suitable intervals, when all of a sudden he gulped and swallowed the whistle. Hurrying home lie reported the happening, and was given an emetic. Everything reappeared except the whistle. , Days passed until oh Monday, when the boy was walking up a hill and breathing heavily, the exertion made him cough. From within came a muffled “peep.” He hurried home, demonstratied, and was rushed to hospital. An X-ray was taken and a specialist operated immediately, removing the whistle ■ within an hour of the boy’s admission, lie is now “progressing favourably” The whistle is an inch long aud not much more than a quarter of an inch at its widest diameter. It is like a midget megaphone, to the side of .which a dhnunitive reed is attached. Wrapped in a piece of lint, and reposing in the specialist’s waistcoat pocket, it is harmless enough to be joked about. But had it not whistled of its own accord, it might have cost a boy his life.