A MAN who stuffed eel up his bum was left in agony when the sharp-toothed sea creature started to gnaw its way out of his digestive tract.
Disturbed medics in Vietnam discovered the 26-inch long eel in X-ray scans taken to diagnose the cause of his pain on July 27, according to local media.
4
4
They found the eel had attempted to chew its way to freedom by biting through the wall of his large intestine.
Initial attempts to remove the snake-like fish with a probe through his anus were thwarted when medics at Viet Duc Hospital, in Hanoi, found a lemon stuffed up there too.
Surgeons were forced to cut through his abdomen to remove the eel with forceps.
Then they manipulated the lemon back down through the patient’s anus until it popped out before stitching up the hole in his intestine and cleaning out leaked faecal matter.
Read more bizarre care reports
Medics say he would have died without treatment and will have to live with a stoma bag for the rest of his life.
Hospital officials have not named the patient and only identified him as a 31-year-old Indian national.
Hospital Deputy Director of the Center for Colon and Rectal Surgery Dr Le Nhat Huy said they had performed many surgeries to remove foreign objects from patients’ anuses.
He told local media how they had removed everything from glass bottles to sex toys.
But this was, he said, the first time they had had to remove a live animal.
Dr Huy warned: “Eels are animals that can survive in anaerobic conditions for a long time and can puncture the digestive tract.
“People should absolutely not insert animals through their anus to create a strong sensation, as the consequences can be severe.”
Experts say that as long as they are damp and out of direct sunlight eels can survive many days out of water.
4
4
Other bizarre cases – from the ‘folded boy’ to cape tumour removals
Read more about incredible procedures and medical marvels:
