A 52-year-old man arrived at the hospital with foul-smelling ulcers on both lower legs, a fever, a racing heart, and lab results pointing toward sepsis. He needed the wounds cut away urgently. During the pre-anesthesia interview, he said his last real meal had been more than 14 hours earlier. Then he mentioned the gummy bears he had eaten about two hours before he got there.
Because he also had diabetes, which can slow stomach emptying, the anesthesia team ran a bedside ultrasound of his stomach rather than taking the fasting history at face value. Two bright, solid-looking structures sat in the gastric antrum. They were the candy.
