Soon after, his throat closed off. Surrell woke up in the hospital a couple of days later, having suffered severe burns to his windpipe and the upper portion of his lungs.
Air flows into the lungs from the nose and the mouth by a strong pipe which you can feel in the front of your throat, and which is called the windpipe.
And you'll notice that the esophagus, which heads to your stomach, is nice and flexible, while your trachea, or windpipe, is rigid and has prominent rings.
Left untreated, these spasms become more extreme, eventually seizing the muscles in the windpipe and chest, leading patients to suffocate within 72 hours of symptoms appearing.