A MAN who stuffed an 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.
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.
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.
Horrifyingly, it’s not the first time that surgeons have had to remove the creature from a person’s insides.
In March, a 34-year-old man from the northern Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam, was admitted to hospital with severe abdominal cramps.
In a strikingly similar turn of events, an X-ray revealed he had a foreign body lurking in his abdomen – which of course, was an eel.
The creature had caused intestinal perforation and peritonitis- a life-threatening complication when the tissue stomach becomes swollen.
The patient was given urgent surgery to remove the unknown object – which the shocked surgeons discovered was a 30-cm long live eel.
When doctors asked how the eel ended up in his stomach, the young man couldn’t give an answer.
Medics think it entered his anus, slid up his colon and somehow entered his abdomen.
Items can leak out of the intestines and into the bowel if patients suffer intestinal perforation.
But what shocked the docs most was the fact the eel was still alive and well when they pulled it from the man’s body
Doctor Pham Manh Hung told local media: “This is a rare case, the rectum is a site with abundant faecal matter and prone to infection.
“However, the surgery was performed safely.”
IT is not unusual for doctors to find random objects inside people's bodies.
Whether they are inhaled by accident, inserted for erotic pleasure or as a means to try and solve a health problem like constipation, doctors see it all.
Medics recently found a fully intact fly buzzing around a man’s intestines.
Meanwhile, a lady in Taiwan recently made the news because a live spider and its discarded outer shell were found inside her ear.
Spiders crawling inside the body are rare; those with arachnophobia will be pleased to hear.
While the person giving a home to a spider had little choice, others accidentally inhale objects, while some even purposely stick things up themselves.
A 2021 study found the vast majority – a whopping 88 per cent – of people attending A&E with this complaint are men.
Some of these have included apples, an aubergine, a brush, pens, carrots,, a deodorant can and pesticide containers.
Inhaling objects is one of the most common causes of death in children under three.
Some of the most commonly inhaled objects include coins, toys or magnets, peanuts, and even hot dogs.
In one bizarre case published in Dove Press, doctors in Africa found a leech stuck in a little girl’s throat, which was later safely removed.
A postman from Preston, England, inhaled a Playmobil road cone as a child, but it was only discovered when the 47-year-old had his lungs scanned when he presented with a persistent cough.
In another odd case, a man inhaled a pea, which was in place long enough for it to begin to sprout in his respiratory tract.
