Chronic stridor in a nine-month-old-Consider esophageal foreign body

Initial lateral neck radiograph showed widening of the retropharyngeal space with significant mass effect displacing the cervical and thoracic trachea. She was taken emergently by ENT to the operating room for intubation. In the OR, flexible fiberoptic nasotracheal intubation was achieved. Through multimodality imaging and several procedures, she was found to have ingested part of a Christmas ornament, which lodged in the esophagus, causing a perforation with retropharyngeal phlegmon. This compressed the airway, causing respiratory distress. She improved on intravenous antibiotics and the ornament was retrieved endoscopically.