  The red damping wing from neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium is a
smoking-gun signal of ongoing reionization. One potential contaminant of the
intergalactic damping wing signal is dense gas associated with foreground
galaxies, which can give rise to proximate damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers. The
Ly$\alpha$ imprint of such absorbers on background quasars is indistinguishable
from the intergalactic medium within the uncertainty of the intrinsic quasar
continuum, and their abundance at $z\gtrsim7$ is unknown. Here we show that the
complex of low-ionization metal absorption systems recently discovered by deep
JWST/NIRSpec observations in the foreground of the $z=7.54$ quasar
ULAS~J1342$+$0928 can potentially reproduce the quasar's spectral profile close
to rest-frame Ly$\alpha$ without invoking a substantial contribution from the
intergalactic medium, but only if the absorbing gas is extremely metal-poor
($[{\rm O}/{\rm H}]\sim-3.5$). Such a low oxygen abundance has never been
observed in a damped Ly$\alpha$ absorber at any redshift, but this possibility
still complicates the interpretation of the spectrum. Our analysis highlights
the need for deep spectroscopy of high-redshift quasars with JWST or ELT to
"purify" damping wing quasar samples, an exercise which is impossible for much
fainter objects like galaxies.
