Earlier this year, a surgical resident was paged to the emergency room to evaluate a man with an angry mass bulging beneath his chin.
Dr. Habib Zalzal half race-walked, half ran to find a panting 40-year-old in obvious distress. In addition to an infection, the man had a choked, high-pitched voice, an elevated tongue, a swollen neck, and a drool. “Please help me,” read the panicked look on his face.
In his patient’s eyes, Dr. Zalzal also saw such hopelessness and fatigue he feared the man might soon stop breathing and die.
That’s when the third-year trainee and co-workers went to work — fast. First an anesthesiologist thrust a narrow, curved tube down the man’s windpipe to keep him from strangling; ninety minutes later, he was prepped and draped for an emergency tracheostomy (an artificial opening in the neck) plus multiple incisions to drain stinking, yellow-brown pus.
The ultimate villain? ...
