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A 31-year-old man who put a live eel up his rear end had to have emergency surgery when the creature bit through his intestines and lodged itself in his abdomen.
The man, an Indian national living in Vietnam, arrived at the emergency department of Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi on July 27 complaining of severe abdominal pain.
After undergoing imaging, diagnostic tests and an ultrasound scan, doctors discovered “a radiopaque skeleton lying horizontally in the abdominal cavity from left to right,” according to The Straits Times.
The over two-foot long live eel had gained access to the man’s abdomen after he inserted it into his backside to experience, what the doctor who treated him called, an “intense sensation.”
Le Nhat Huy, deputy director of the Colorectal and Pelvic Floor Surgery Centre at Viet Duc Hospital, explained that “the eel had bitten through the patient’s rectum and colon to escape into the abdominal cavity.”
Doctors first put together a team of endoscopy experts and anesthesiologists to try and remove the eel via colonoscopy, but were unsuccessful.
So, with the man’s pain continuing to increase and facing the risk of death, emergency surgery was performed and the eel, along with a full unpeeled lime (photos here) were removed.
Due to the risk of infection from fecal matter in the abdominal cavity and contamination in the rectum, doctors chose to perform a colostomy on the man to divert feces from passing through the newly sutured perforation.
“Eels can survive in anaerobic conditions for a long time and have the ability to bite through the gastrointestinal tract,” said Dr. Nhat Huy.
“Therefore, people should never insert live animals through the anus to seek intense sensations due to the unforeseeable consequences.”
The hospital reported that it has had to remove wind-oil bottles, glass cups and adult toys from patients who put them into their rear ends in the past, but this was the first time they have ever had to remove a live animal.