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While a 60-year-old woman was undergoing a dental implant surgery the drill fell into her lung by accident. The patient was at the Vastmanland County Hospital in Sweden to have her teeth removed, but ended up having a 1.1′ metal bit removed from behind her lung.

During the originally surgery, the drill slipped out of the dentist’s hands and fell into the patient’s mouth.

“She tried to spit it out, and was made to cough, but she’d already swallowed,” the hospital’s medical chief Per Weitz told The Local.

After taking an x-ray, doctors immediately performed a bronchoscopy to remove the dental tool.

Vastmanland County Hospital’s medical chief Per Weitz explained that a “pinky-sized tube was sent into her lung with a small camera and pliers to grab hold of the drill.”

Since the disaster, the hospital has taken steps to ensure that this type of accident never happens again.

“What we’ve done at the clinic is to make sure everyone double checks that the drill is attached properly, and we’ve also introduced a routine of testing the drill in the air. That should be done before every procedure now. Unfortunately, drills are going to be dropped every now and then,” Weitz explains.

The patient was released a day after the procedure, but she did not recover fully until a month later, according to the report.