Eli5: how come when we get food down the wrong pipe we don’t die of a lung infection?

Question

How come when food goes in the lungs and we choke, the food doesn’t eventually rot in the lungs? How do we get it out or does it decompose

In: Biology

Answer 1

I did almost die from aspiration pneumonia. I spent months in intensive care because of a damn piece of spaghetti. But, I was originally diagnosed with bronchopneumonia, not aspiration pneumonia. I imagine many people would simply be diagnosed with something similar, as the spaghetti on my xray no longer resembled spaghetti by the time it hospitalised me, so it may often go undetected. It is typically coughed out before you get to this point, though. I was just particularly unlucky.