DELHI: Biting into a chilli shell can be painful enough, but it can also have too big serious consequences than a blazing tongue and wet eyes. A two-year-old girl, who took a bite of the hot chilli accidentally, died of breathing failure despite of giving all medical treatment.
The child’s post-mortem, directed at AIIMS, said death was triggered by stomach fluids getting into the breathing tract. That incident was informed a few months ago and has now been issued in the Medico-Legal Journal.
As per the report, girl vomited several times and because of that fluids filled the wind pipe.
Doctors said that, “it is likely possible that gastric liquids or vomit enunciated into the windpipe of the girl and clogged her. However doctors at local hospital succeeded to revive her initially, but the girl died within 24 hours.
“Aspiration of gastric insides resulting in death due to breathing failure is not uncommon. However, this is the first such case connecting the accidental nibble of a chilli at our hospital. It is hardly reported in medical-legal literature.” Said Dr Chittaranjan Behera, the post-mortem surgeon.
Dr Sudhir Gupta, head of forensic medicine department at AIIMS said that, “The problem arises when food or gastric fluid arrive into the wind pipe, as occurred in this case. It causes respiratory disaster if revival is not conducted immediately,” He added that usually our body defends against such accidents through the act of coughing. But with the child’s case, it is possible that the ‘laryngeal cough reflex’ was may be poorly developed or sedentary due to unconsciousness, leading to death.
In grown-ups, the death due to aspiration of liquid in the wrong pipe is seen mainly in alcoholics, when lack of consciousness delays body’s reflex mechanism.
Doctors said children cannot segregate between eatable and non- eatable elements, so parents should safeguard that substances such as chilli are kept away from their children. “If a patient says, his or her head should be located sideways, laterally, so that additional aspiration of gastric content is ominously reduced”.