The now 39-year-old New Yorker Rene Remache was only released from the pipe three years ago, thirty years after it was inserted … and left behind, the New York Post writes.
In 1989, then six-year-old Rene fell from a window and was taken to Elmhurst Hospital with a skull base fracture. According to the medical file, the breathing tube inserted into the boy caused a lot of discomfort. Rene even pulled the pipe out once, according to the old documents. According to Rene and his lawyer, however, he must have swallowed the tube and the doctors – culpably – never noticed.
In the years that followed, Remache suffered from unexplained abdominal pains, but the cause was never found, not even by the doctors in Elmhurst, where he was being treated. The misery continued until Remache became so bad in Mexico in 2019 that he reported to doctors there. Remache had difficulty breathing and was sent home with a diagnosis of bronchitis and a box of antibiotics.
A CAT scan in New York eventually found the culprit. The tube was removed in another hospital. Now it serves as Exhibit A in a lawsuit against Elmhurst Hospital. That refuses to settle and says that the removed tube is a different type than the one that was placed at Remache in 1989. Remache will not know until after the summer whether that is the case and whether compensation will be awarded. The trial is set for October 11.