DOCTORS were left stunned by a man who turned up at A&E a day after an eel “accidentally” swam up his backside.
The 55-year-old fisherman initially didn’t seek medical attention as he hoped the creature would slip out again “on its own”.
But he took himself to hospital after he started experiencing “severe abdominal pain”.
Eye-watering X-rays show that the eel had punctured the man’s colon after entering his body through his rectum, causing peritonitis.
This is an infection of the inner lining of the tummy, which can be life-threatening if left untreated.
Fearing that the man would develop deadly blood poisoning, doctors rushed him to surgery to remove the eel – which was over 2ft long and turned out to still be alive.
Read more cases report
Bangladeshi medics wrote about the “unique case of traumatic intestinal perforation resulting from the accidental entry of an eel fish into the rectum” in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports.
“Foreign body ingestion or insertion is not uncommon, particularly in populations engaged in certain occupations or recreational activities,” they observed.
“However, the penetration of the intestinal wall by a live animal, such as a fish, is an unusual and scarcely documented event.”
The patient was a fisherman from Bangladesh.
Most read in Health
At the time of the incident, he was wearing a lungi – a type of long skirt often worn by Bangladeshi men.
He explained that the eel entered his lungi through the opening at the bottom while he was catching fish, before wriggling up his anal canal.
The 55-year-old had been experiencing intense abdominal pain for five hours when he turned up at the emergency department.
Medics observed that his stomach was swollen and tender.
They ordered an X-ray, which revealed a dark, eel-shaped shadow on the right side of the abdomen.
The scan also showed a crescent-shaped shadow under the right part of the man’s diaphragm, which hinted that he had developed peritonitis.
Peritonitis is usually caused by a bacterial or fungal infection, but it can also develop if fluids from other organs leak into the peritoneum – a membrane that lines the inside of the abdomen and pelvis.
If not treated quickly, it can lead to a life-threatening infection that can spread rapidly through the body.
Doctors determined that the patient was at risk of septicaemia, or blood poisoning – when germs invade the bloodstream – so they decided to operate on him immediately.
They extracted the eel from the man’s peritoneal cavity, the space surrounding the abdominal organs, which is surrounded by the peritoneum.
Shockingly, the eel – which was nearly 2.2ft long – was still alive.
Doctors said it had been able to continue breathing by punching through the wall of the man’s colon and squeezing into the peritoneal cavity, which contains a liquid – mostly water – to reduce friction between organs.
Four days later, the man was symptom-free and was discharged from the hospital.
The report didn’t mention if he needed any follow-up appointments.
Medics concluded: “This case highlights the necessity for vigilance in recognising unusual causes of abdominal pain, especially in individuals with relevant occupational or recreational exposures.”
NHS doctors are no strangers to dealing with similar incidents, with data analysis finding about 400 “foreign” objects are pulled from Brits’ anuses each year.
People most commonly insert objects into their rectum for sexual pleasure.
This is partly due to the number of nerves in the anus making it highly sensitive.
But this practice, also known as anal play, carries a number of risks – from objects getting stuck to bowel perforations, which can be deadly as material from the digestive tract can spill into other parts of the body, causing an infection.
Reports in medical literature of objects being stuck in intimate areas date back to the 16th century.
As well as corks, other objects reportedly recovered by medics over the years include plastic aerosol caps, a plastic cup and even a child’s toy.