MINA, 24 January 2005 — A Tunisian pilgrim was saved at Mina general hospital from being suffocated by a blockage of a large piece of camel meat in his gullet.
Dr. Salahaddin Mahfooz, head of the surgery department at the hospital, said that the pilgrim came to the hospital totally exhausted and complaining of a piece of meat stuck in his gullet.
“Then an immediate operation was recommended, and it took almost three hours to remove the piece of meat which measured 3x4 cm,” said Dr. Mahfooz, who performed the operation.
In the operations, the blocked piece of meat was eroded until it became small and then pushed into the stomach, after making sure that stomach and duodenum could let it pass.
In an interview with Arab News, the Tunisian patient pilgrim, Sidi Husein Assajoomi, explained how the blockage happened. He said, “I was at my tent eating a hot free Kabsa meal (a popular Saudi dish made of boiled meat and rice). It happened that I took a big piece of meat. Once I put it in my mouth I could not bear its heat, so I immediately swallowed it. But it could not pass through my gullet and got stuck there.”
