2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/128686Let K be a knot in a closed orientable irreducible 3-manifold M and let P be a Heegaard splitting of the knot complement of genus at least two. Suppose Q is a bridge surface for K. Then either \begin{itemize} \item $d(P)\leq 2-χ(Q-K)$, or \item K can be isotoped to be disjoint from Q so that after the isotopy Q is a Heegaard surface for the knot exterior and is isotopic to a possibly stabilized copy of P. \end{itemize}References added, exposition slightly improved, 17 pages, 3 figuresGeometric Topology57M25, 57M27, 57M50text