According to the introduction, 2-year-old girl Tingting (a fictitious name) is from Sichuan Suining. Because there are streams flowing down from the mountains in the local area, many people like to directly take water from the stream for drinking. Tingting's family was no exception. Tingting's father Mr Peng said that the water used for cooking and washing at home was all taken directly from the small stream. As the stream water was clear, unpolluted, and tasted good, they often drank it without boiling it. According to Mr Peng's introduction, sometimes leeches could be seen with the naked eye in the mountain streams. Incidents of animals drinking raw water and growing leeches occurred frequently in the local area. The doctor reminded that children should not drink raw water, and children under three years old should also avoid eating nut-like foods to prevent food from being mistakenly inhaled into the trachea causing suffocation. When leeches adsorb on the skin, do not forcibly pull them off, otherwise their suckers will break and enter the skin, possibly causing infection. The correct method is to gently tap around where the leech has attached, or use salt, vinegar, alcohol, or cooling oil for application, then the leech will naturally detach; iodine can be applied to the wound to prevent infection.
However, since half a month ago, Tingting's voice changed, hoarse as if she had shouted until her voice broke. Tingting's family thought she had a cold, and the local hospital treated Tingting's symptoms as tonsillitis. Half a month passed, but Tingting's condition did not improve, instead, her spirit became increasingly poor, and she often experienced difficulty breathing. In mid-December, Tingting's parents sent her to Chongqing Medical University Affiliated Children's Hospital for treatment.
Leech's scientific name is Hirudo, which is very common in rivers and rice fields, most of them live by sucking blood or body fluids. Dr. Deng Xiaobin from the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department of the Children's Hospital introduced that Tingting's hoarse voice was caused by the leech crawling over the vocal cords and increasing secretions. And when the leech shrinks into a ball, it can cause the child to experience difficulty breathing, and in severe cases, it may be fatal. The place where the leech sucker adsorbed would cause bronchial mucosa redness and bleeding.
On December 27, according to China News Service (reporters Guo Hong, Liu Hanxueshao), we learned from Chongqing Medical University Affiliated Children's Hospital that a 2-year-old girl from Sichuan province had suddenly become hoarse and often experienced difficulty breathing due to drinking raw water for a long time. After examination, it was found that there was a living leech about 2 centimeters long in the girl's bronchus.
The doctors performed a bronchoscopy on Tingting and found a lot of inflammatory secretions in her airway, with local bronchial wall congestion and edema, and a foreign object located inside the trachea. During the subsequent surgery, the doctors found a black foreign object shadow in Tingting's trachea. Just as the doctor was preparing to remove the foreign object, they surprisingly found that the "foreign object" was still moving. After the foreign object was removed, it was clearly seen that the reason for Tingting's illness was a living leech about 2 centimeters long coiled up in the trachea.