Life threatening ventilatory obstruction due to a foreign body in a new sealed endotracheal tube

Abstract

In the current days of high tech equipment and well defined safety regulations, technical failures are less likely to occur. Still many manufacturing and packaging errors are encountered in anaesthetic practice which go unnoticed during the routine inspection prior to their use.

A 32 year old healthy adult male with insignificant medical and surgical history was posted for clavicular plating under general endotracheal anaesthesia (GETA).