For one player, a game of beer pong went horribly wrong. The unidentified 19-year-old was taken to the hospital with acute throat pain, difficulty swallowing, and abnormal breathing following a round of beer pong. An initial examination showed that the back of the young man’s throat was inflamed, while a subsequent x-ray revealed what appeared to be a bottle cap lodged in the man’s upper esophagus. The cap had fallen into the patient’s red Solo cup during the drinking game, and he had unknowingly swallowed it. Although he had a stable airway, doctors had to use surgical intervention to remove the bottle cap due to the potential for damage or perforation. Doctors inserted a tube with a camera through the man’s mouth without complication. The patient was lucky, as in most cases of accidental aspiration, foreign objects lodge themselves in the trachea or other parts of the throat, jeopardizing the patient’s breathing. In this case, the bottle cap was removed and the young man is on the mend.
