Smoking (Especially When Your Husband Doesn't Want You To) Is Bad For The Throat

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Man Charged With Severing Wife's Windpipe And Tongue

He slashed her throat after an argument about her smoking a cigarette while they celebrated her birthday at two bars.

Saint Paul, Minnesota - Meg Lundeen and her husband had gone out to celebrate her 30th birthday with friends and colleagues, visiting a couple of bars on Friday night.

Before the couple returned to their home in Brooklyn Center early Saturday, Lundeen called a friend to say that she'd been fighting with her husband and wanted to come over. But around 2:40 a.m., a neighbor found Lundeen bleeding profusely on her driveway.

An argument over her smoking a cigarette led her husband, Randy P. Aaser, to slash her throat, severing her tongue and windpipe, according to attempted-murder charges filed Tuesday.

Lundeen was in critical condition Tuesday at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, said spokesman Robert Prevost.

The neighbor saved Lundeen's life, because she soon would have bled to death without help, said Brooklyn Center police Lt. Scott Nadeau.

Doctors were able to reattach her tongue, and another physician said it might heal.

Nadeau said police hadn't dealt with the couple before Saturday.

No one else was in their home that night, said Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Lee Barry.

Aaser and Lundeen are licensed as respiratory care practitioners and employed at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, the hospital confirmed.

Nadeau said police haven't been able to interview Lundeen, who can't speak but is expected to survive. He said that her tongue was severed toward the back of the mouth, but that doctors were able to reattach it and her windpipe.

Aaser, 33, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with second-degree attempted murder and is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

The complaint gives this account of the case:

The couple, married for three years, were out Friday night to celebrate her 30th birthday with co-workers at two suburban bars. Lundeen told a friend at Blondies bar in Brooklyn Park that she wanted to buy cigarettes, but that she had quit smoking and that her husband would be mad if he found out. After Lundeen and Aaser left the bar about 2 a.m., she called the friend about the argument.

Between 2:30 and 2:45 a.m., a neighbor heard the door bang at the couple's home in the 6000 block of Halifax Avenue N. After hearing moaning, the neighbor found Lundeen.

Concerned about Aaser, the neighbor checked inside the house, found a lot of blood, came back outside and asked Lundeen if her husband had cut her.

Lundeen, who couldn't speak, gave the thumbs up signal and police were called.

About 3 a.m. Aaser called a friend and said that during a fight Lundeen pulled a knife, which he grabbed and then cut her neck. He said he was sorry, the charges said. He told the friend he was in a neighbor's yard, where police arrested him about 3:20 a.m.

While sitting in a chair at the police station, Aaser, head down, began to cry and said he didn't mean to hurt his wife and did something stupid over an argument about cigarettes, records said. Police found a bloody 8-inch knife in the couple's kitchen.

A surgeon who handles facial injuries at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis said that it is rare to completely sever a tongue, but that it could be stitched back in place. It might heal, because the tongue has an excellent blood supply to help it recover better than other parts of the body, he said.

"That doesn't mean you can move it or taste with it," said Dr. Mark Engelstad. "It's one thing to have live tissue, and another thing to have it taste and move -- and movement is important for speech.

"You may need several months of speech therapy or have to wait months for it to improve."

Engelstad noted that some cancer patients have lost a third of their tongue and still been able to speak. He said speech therapists would teach a patient tongue exercises to relearn how to make letter sounds.

"Over time people improve because we are human beings and we are capable of adapting," he said.