A father was left fearing for his life after a stifled sneeze tore his windpipe.
Andrew McDougall, 29, from Blairgowrie in Perthshire, Scotland, was driving home from work in the summer of 2022 when he felt the need to sneeze and pinched his nose.
As he stifled the urge, he said he felt a “pop” followed by a stiff neck, but he initially thought nothing of the sensation.
It wasn’t until he arrived home that the extent of the injury revealed itself, and he was whisked to hospital by his partner.
Speaking to STV News, Mr McDougall said he arrived home and realised his voice was a “higher pitch” before he “brought up this thick blood”.
The dad-of-two said that after arriving home he asked his partner if he sounded “a bit different”.
He said: “It was a higher pitch. Around ten minutes later, I had to clear my throat, and I brought up this thick blood.
“That’s when Kirstie [Andrew’s partner] phoned for an ambulance.”
Andrew was rushed to hospital, where doctors discovered he had suffered a two-millimetre tear in his windpipe.
He stayed in hospital for three nights before returning home and spending several more weeks in recovery.
Researchers later took an interest in the unusual case and featured Mr McDougall in a British Medical Journal report.
They found that he was one of very few people known to have sustained a sneeze-related tear to his windpipe on record, and “could have led to his death”.
Lead reviewer Dr Rasads Misirovs, an ENT specialist, said the condition is “extremely rare”, and a similar case likely wouldn’t be heard of in the “next few years or even decades”.
He explained the condition is caused when air does not pass through the windpipe and the tubes connecting to people’s lungs named bronchioles.
When it goes to the wrong part of the body – in this case, the throat – he said, the reaction is akin to a bursting water pipe in a home that “goes everywhere”.
Mr McDougall’s injuries have since healed without surgery, but he has been left with lasting damage.
He said: “I don’t think my voice ever recovered. It often seems quite laboured, that might be from the trauma it caused my voice box.”
