Authors' reply

[...]this particular mechanism might not be the dominant one in the case discussed by us [2] as the onset of symptoms was within a few hours of sustaining injuryThe alternative hypotheses enumerated by the authors, namely compression injury, shearing stress or traction injury at the carina might explain the airway injury (i.e., tracheo-bronchial injury) but is clearly inadequate to explain the concomitant esophageal injury as seen in our patient.