Surgeons pull 30cm long live eel from man’s stomach

A man complaining of abdominal pains stunned surgeons after they found a 30cm-long eel living in his stomach.

The 34-year-old was admitted to hospital in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam with severe cramps on Wednesday and an X-ray and ultrasound showed he had a foreign body in his stomach.

Medics couldn’t figure out what it was, but could see it had caused intestinal perforation and peritonitis, which is when the inside wall of the abdomen becomes swollen and painful.

WARNING: Images of surgery below

They decided to operate and soon discovered an eel the length of a standard ruler in his belly which, incredibly, was still alive.

The surgeons managed to successfully remove the creature and the man recovered in hospital.

He wouldn’t explain how the eel got inside him but doctors believe it entered his anus, slid up his colon, bit through his intestine, and entered his abdomen.

They said they were amazed the eel was still alive when they removed it.

Dr Pham Manh Hung told local media: ‘This is a rare case, the rectum is a site with abundant faecal matter and prone to infection.’

Last year doctors performing a colonoscopy found a live fly buzzing around inside man’s intestines.

The patient, who was 63, had gone for a routine colon cancer screening in Missouri, in the US.

The procedure was going as normal until the camera reached the transverse colon, which is at the top of the large intestine.

It was there medics came across the fly – but no one could explain how it got there.

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