During a sinus operation in South Korea, a 55-year-old man's care team realized something was gone: a badly loose tooth from his lower jaw. His breathing and circulation readings stayed stable, and nobody could say where the tooth had ended up.
An X-ray taken after the procedure, before he woke from anesthesia, answered the question. The tooth had slipped into his airway and settled beneath the epiglottis, directly above his vocal cords, according to a case report published Aug. 1 in the Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine.
