A REAL WORLD EMERGENCY MEDICINE STORY

The Patient Who Suffered a Lifetime of Loss From a Moment of Fun on the Ski Slopes

The boy who bit off his tongue

Photo by Tim Hüfner on Unsplash

Pleasures of various kinds would be forever out of reach — the thrill of a French Kiss, the total titillation the tongue brings to oral sex, the salty and sweet of the tip of the tongue’s taste buds.

I don’t know if he was sticking out his tongue in jest or doing it because that’s what some do when maximally exerting themselves — a la Michael Jordan — but when he landed his ski jump his mouth snapped shut and his tongue was severed, at its base.

The severed portion was retrieved and transported in the helicopter with him.

How he made it off the slopes, into the chopper, down the mountain and to my Emergency Department without gagging on his own blood is beyond me, but he did.

Part of the advantage of being a 20-year-old boy-man I suppose.

Toby arrived in my Emergency Department (ED) sitting bolt upright, his mouth slightly ajar, blood and secretions dripping. The flight medics confirmed the story of his wounding…