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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Surgery saves boy who gulped tiny LED bulb

Mumbai : In a bizarre development, a small boy from Kolhapur swallowed a tiny LED light bulb a few months ago that got stuck deep in his...

Surgery saves boy who gulped tiny LED bulb

Mumbai : In a bizarre development, a small boy from Kolhapur swallowed a tiny LED light bulb a few months ago that got stuck deep in his lung causing huge trauma and emotional stress for his family, officials said.   When the unusual case was referred to the Jaslok Hospital & Research Centre (JHRC), a team of medicos successfully extricated the foreign object lodged in the three-and-half-year-old boy’s chest.   Recounting the remarkable feat, a JHRC official said the child, Aarav Patil was reported to be suffering from severe breathing difficulties and incessant coughing for almost three months.   Doctors treating him at his home town initially mistook it for pneumonia and subjected him to multiple courses of antibiotics and other medicines, but there was improvement in the boy’s condition.   Subsequently, he was taken for advanced tests, examinations and a CT Scan which revealed the shocker – a metallic object was sitting inside the boy’s left bronchus, partially blocking the airway.   More tests identified the offending object – it was a LED bulb from a toy car – a development so rare that even seasoned doctors described it as a ‘one in a million case’.   Though doctors in Kolhapur attempted to retrieve the foreign body through flexible bronchoscopy - a minimally invasive procedure - the attempts proved to be unsuccessful.   As Aarav’s condition appeared to deteriorate, his desperate family rushed him to JHRC and he was referred to a team of specialist doctors.   After studying his case and examining Aarav, the medical team comprising thoracic surgeon Dr. Vimesh Rajput, ENT surgeon Dr. Divya Prabhat and Dr. Anurag Jain discovered that the bulb had not only blocked the bronchus but had also embedded itself in the surrounding tissues of the lung tissue, making its removal extremely challenging.   A rigid bronchoscopy conducted further confirmed the severity of the obstruction. Left with no other option, the doctors decided to opt for a mini thoracotomy — a delicate surgery involving a 4-centimeter incision in the chest.   “This was one of the rarest cases we’ve encountered. The bulb was lodged in such a way that conventional methods could not retrieve it. Through careful planning and teamwork, we managed to safely remove the object by a mini thoracotomy and restored Aarav’s lung function,” explained Dr. Rajput.   Emphasising how such cases are ignored, Dr. Prabhat pointed out that chronic cough or breathing issues are often dismissed as common pneumonia or even asthma.   “However, such persistent symptoms must always be investigated thoroughly, especially through early detection and imaging which can make all the difference to the patient,” she averred.   JHRC CMO Dr. Milind Khadke said, “The foreign body aspiration in kids is far more common that parents may realise but quick intervention is critical to prevent long-term medical complications.”

The Cousins of Beed

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Beed

When Pankaja Munde and Dhananjay Munde shared the stage on Dussehra this year, the reunion resulted in great surprise. For years, they had traded veiled barbs against each other. Until last year, Dhananjay, who is minister for agriculture in Maharashtra, was on the opposite side of the political spectrum as an NCP man while Pankaja is a member of the legislative council from the BJP. Now, on the cusp of the Maharashtra legislative assembly elections, the warring cousins, both, claiming a right to Gopinath Munde’s political legacy, had come together despite being in different political parties, albeit in the same Mahayuti.


Gopinath Munde cut his teeth in politics as a member of the ABVP during his student days. He is believed to have met Pramod Mahajan then who was also a budding youth leader of the saffron party. The two became friends and then family as Munde married Mahajan’s younger sister. Those who have watched the duo’s rise say that Munde truly stepped out of his more charismatic brother-in-law’s shadow when he undertook the ‘Sangharsh Yatra’ in 1994-95 against Sharad Pawar’s government, making the former chief minister his target. He managed to mobilise the masses and emerged as a formidable leader of the OBC. Munde went on to become the deputy chief minister in the first Shiv Sena-BJP government in the state from 1995-1999 and won a reputation for being an effective home minister. He was appreciated for supporting the Mumbai police in launching an aggressive counter-attack against the underworld that was running riot in the city back then. In contrast, Mahajan busied himself with the top echelons of the BJP, holding fort in New Delhi as a high-profile union minister and the party’s treasurer who was also the brain behind the ‘rath yatra’. Together, they stitched and preserved the BJP’s alliance with the Sena, maintaining a warm rapport with Bal Thackeray.


 The Gen-next of the families have made their mark in politics. Mahajan’s daughter Poonam won the elections to the Lok Sabha in 2014 and 2019. Munde’s older daughter Pankaja was a former minister in Maharashtra but lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. His younger daughter Pritam won the Parliamentary elections from Beed by a record margin after Munde passed away in 2014. She was a MP for two terms but was denied a ticket this year. Munde’s nephew, Dhananjay worked at the grassroots level for the BJP in Beed for over a decade but quit the party in 2013 to join the NCP.


He was peeved by his uncle’s decision to overlook his claim to the Parli Lok Sabha constituency seat in the elections and instead, promote his daughter Pankaja. In 2023, he supported Ajit Pawar when the NCP was split and went on to become the agriculture minister in the current Mahayuti government. The two cousins have been warring for over a decade, each trying to reclaim the legacy left behind by Munde.

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