Dental Drill Accident: Burr Lodges In Patient's Lung

A dental drill accident took a 60-year-old Swedish woman a month to recover.

Dental drill burrs (Photo: Hakan Svensson, Wikipedia)

The accident happened at a hospital in Vasteras, Sweden while the unnamed woman was having a dental implant surgery.

During the surgery, the head of the dental drill, called the burr, became loose and slid down the woman's throat. As a reflex, she accidentally swallowed the three-centimeter long metal part, which was later found in her lung through an X-ray.

"She tried to spit it out, and was made to cough, but she’d already swallowed," Per Weitz, the medical chief of Vastmanland County Hospital told The Local.

Doctors performed an emergency bronchoscopy to remove the foreign body in her lung.

"A pinky-sized tube was sent into her lung with a small camera and pliers to grab hold of the drill," explained Weitz.

The incident took place in September but it was just recently that it came to light after it was reported to Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare in accordance with Lex Maria, the informal name for regulations governing the reporting of injuries or incidents in the Swedish healthcare system.

The woman was discharged from the hospital the following day but spent a month recovering from her ordeal.

To avoid such accidents to happen again, Weitz said they have introduced new routines, including testing dental drills in the air and double checking whether the drill is attached properly.

But he admitted the risk of dropping the dental drill's head is still there: "Unfortunately, drills are going to be dropped every now and then."