A 34-year-old Vietnamese man underwent emergency surgery to remove a 30 cm live eel from his abdomen after experiencing severe pain. The incident happened on March 20 when the man from Lang Son went to the hospital complaining of severe stomach pain, as per a local report.
After a few ultrasounds and X-rays, the doctors realised there was a foreign object causing serious problems in his intestines and decided the best course of action would be to operate on him.
However, they were surprised to find that the object was a live eel the size of a regular school ruler. They removed the eel but had to cut out a damaged part of his intestine.
The surgery was successful and the man remains in the hospital, currently recovering. Although he still feels a bit uncomfortable, he is expected to get better with time.
Doctors at the Hai Ha District Medical Center in Quang Ninh Province suspected the eel entered through the man’s anus and travelled through his colon. Head of Surgery, Pham Manh Hung, told the local outlet “This is a rare case. The rectal area has a lot of faecal fluid and is easily infected with bacteria, but it was performed safely so the surgery did not have any problems.”
Finding foreign objects in the stomach is not uncommon, usually happening because someone accidentally swallowed something they should not have, like fish bones.
A similar incident occurred back in 2020 in China when doctors found the remains of two parasitic worms in a man’s abdomen.
The Jiangsu Provincial Hospital detailed the case, explaining that the man arrived with severe abdominal pain and was in danger of going into shock due to a dangerous bacterial infection. A CT scan revealed the skeletal remains of the parasites in his internal organs. These creatures had gnawed their way through his colon and went out through his digestive tract, causing significant damage.
The doctors revealed that the patient had ingested two live swamp eels as part of a folk remedy to cure his chronic constipation and prostatitis. But shortly after consuming the eels, he started experiencing intense abdominal pain.
Despite this, he waited until the following day to seek medical help, which likely made his condition worse and led to the life-threatening bacterial infection and complications.
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