Swallowed tongue danger through your own tongue

Tongue can quickly become a life-threatening danger

08/04/2014

The tongue has a variety of tasks, including stimulating the swallowing movement, has fine taste and tactile sensors and is instrumental in the phonetic formation during speech involved. But besides these important and positive functions, the tongue can also be fast „swallows“ or fall so far back into the throat that they can quickly become a life-threatening danger in an emergency.

Organ with multiple functions
The tongue is a mucous membrane-covered muscle organ, which belongs to the upper digestive tract and almost completely fills the oral cavity with closed pines. This muscle body has a variety of functions, such as the taste recognition, the „Scan“ from food to foreign objects such as herringbone or bone chips, or to transport the food into the throat for subsequent swallowing. In addition, the tongue plays an important role in speech, because many sounds or letters (for example, "t", "d" and the rolled "r") could not be formed without them.

Ukrainian footballer „swallows“ his tongue after clashing with opponent
However, in addition to all the positive functions, the tongue can also become a real danger, as it falls too far back and thereby blocks the respiratory tract. The risk of unconsciousness is particularly high, but excessive alcohol consumption can also cause the tongue to get out of control. Even in sports, such a situation can occur, for example, when two players unrestrictedly run into each other in football. Last week Ukrainian striker Oleg Gusev (30) from first-team Dynamo Kyiv collided in the 20th minute in the game against Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, beating his opponent's keeper „swallowed“.

In unconsciousness, suffocation death threatens due to obstructive airways
Gusew had gone unconscious to the ground after the collision. The game continued at first, only one Dnipro player noticed that something was wrong, sprinted to Gusew and pulled his tongue back up. By doing so, he probably saved the life of the Ukrainian national team, because unconsciousness relaxes the tongue muscles, causing the tongue to fall into the throat and block the respiratory tract. As a result, the person concerned gets no more air and it threatens the suffocation.

In an emergency first of all control breathing
Accordingly, this risk not only affects athletes, but any unconsciousness can become a major hazard instead, especially if the fainting person is lying on his back, and the tongue slips backwards into the throat by gravity. Therefore, in such a case, a particularly quick first aid is announced, so as not to lose any time that could cost the person's life. If someone becomes unconscious, first responders should first check their breathing and check that the airways are clear. For this, the stable lateral position is usually used to ensure that the tongue can not obstruct the airways and fluids can flow out of the mouth and throat.

„Esmarcher handle“ as an alternative to stable lateral position
Alternatively, the so-called „Esmarcher handle“ be used in which the head is overstretched and the lower jaw is pushed forward and raised. However, in the course of hyperextension, this should under no circumstances lead to hyperextension of the cervical spine - because even this could have been injured in the accident. In addition, the head of infants may only be minimally bent backwards for anatomical reasons. If these measures are not sufficient, the tongue can also be easily pulled out by hand - in any case, an emergency doctor should also be called.

Quick intervention can be life-saving
In the case of the footballer Oleg Gusew the fast intervention of the opponent was apparently also life-saving: „I have been confronted with such a situation several times, so I knew what to do. Once I helped a colleague from the national team in this way“, said the savior Jaba Kankava in an interview with FC Dynamo Kyiv.