>> I was in an automobile accident in '09, and had broken my neck, and they couldn't
-- in four places, I had a 10-level fusion in my neck.
And I was having trouble with my esophagus, and so they had to operate on my esophagus.
I went in and had a test done to prepare for another surgery, and that's when they found
cancer.
They said that they had to do what they call a laryngectomy, which is they had to go in
and remove my voice box.
And so, two weeks later, I had a laryngectomy.
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I was cleaning.
I -- my TEP, which is my prosthesis inside my throat, and was putting my lary tube back
in, and it kind of got jammed.
And I kind of just forced it down, and when I did that, it apparently caught on the lip
of my TEP, and it pulled it out, and shoved it into my lung.
And I couldn't breathe.
I panicked.
It's the first time that I had had an experience like that.
I ran into my daughter's room.
It's the middle of the night.
>> It was pretty actually horrific.
She kind of, like, kicked in my door, and she couldn't breathe.
So I -- in turn, that was our first emergency with her laryngectomy.
So I was in a whirlwind.
I didn't know what to do, called 911, and it was just very frantic.
>> They weren't sure what to do.
They apparently had never had a laryngectomy patient before.
We wear a wrist bracelet that says we're neck breathers, because we don't breathe at all
through our nose and our mouth anymore.
And I kept trying to show it to him, and he kept taking my arm and shoving it away.
And they were trying to put a mask over my nose and my mouth, and I was pointing to my
little -- you can see -- and I couldn't communicate to him what to do.
And he didn't know what to do.
I don't honestly remember too much after that.
I passed out from -- because I wasn't breathing, and had actually flat-lined.
So I don't remember much more until we got here.
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>> When we evaluated her, I could see that she was having trouble breathing.
Her oxygen levels were not as high as they should be, so I took a look at the chest x-ray.
And I was able to identify that there was something a little bit different in one of
the pathways to her lungs, and we could identify a little disk-like structure there, which
was consistent with a prosthesis.
So with that in mind, we knew immediately that we're worried about a foreign body.
Once I saw her, I knew immediately that she had had a laryngectomy, and so, I was able
to inform the rest of the team, her healthcare team that they should not be trying to put
a breathing tube through her mouth, and if she needed any extra oxygen, that it should
go through the neck.
Pretty quickly afterwards, we were able to get the pulmonologist involved, and they were
able to use a pretty nifty tool to actually freeze something onto that disk and pull that
out within a couple of minutes.
Her airway was open.
Her oxygen levels restored pretty quickly, and we were able to save her from a pretty
emergent situation.
>> Thank God that he was there, because even regular emergency doctors aren't for sure
on how to treat a laryngectomy when they're not breathing, and it's by no fault of anybody's.
It's just -- we're not common, and so, they aren't trained in taking care of us, because
it isn't common.
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Health-wise, I'm doing really good.
I'm talking.
I have my TEP put back in.
A lot of people questioned whether or not I was going to take a chance again of putting
it in, and something happening, but my ability to communicate with my family and my grandchildren
was far more important to me than fear.
Like, it's hard to be like this, and it's -- but you can't live in fear.
All you can do is hope that you have enough things in place to protect you if something
happens.
I have pictures on my wall in my bedroom that show my stoma, and how to administer CPR to
me, because you don't do it the same way, obviously.
I believe that first responders, paramedics, and even ER personnel should know how to administer
CPR to someone in our condition.
Every day, I thank God that they were able to save me.
I thank the doctors, and the nurses in the ER.
Everybody got right on board once they knew what to do.
Everybody was a team, and worked together to save my life.
So if I can save one person from having to go through it, it was all worth it.