A medical team in Vietnam saved a man’s life after finding a live eel in his stomach.
The dangerous animal was 30 centimeters long and had caused several intestinal perforations in the 34-year-old patient.
The man reportedly went to a medical center in Quang Ninh province with severe stomach pain.
Doctors attended to his case, but the pain was so severe that the patient could not speak; So they did an x-ray and ultrasound.
The results showed that there was a foreign body in the abdomen that had perforated the intestines and caused peritonitis.
So doctors decided to perform emergency surgery to remove the object and find out what was in his stomach.
However, doctors were surprised because they discovered that this strange body was actually a 30 centimeter eel.
How did the eel get into your body?
The fish was alive and could be safely removed. However, since the animal had caused necrosis in the intestine, a complicated procedure had to be carried out to remove part of this organ.
The prognosis was quite complicated because this procedure had to be performed in a colorectal area that has a high risk of infection.
The operation was a complete success; the man was able to stabilize himself and had to stay in the hospital for several days.
“This is a rare case. The rectal area contains a lot of fecal fluid and can easily become infected with bacteria, but it was done safely. The operation went without any problems,” surgeon Pham Manh Hung told local press.
After the patient woke up, the medical team questioned him to find out how this animal could enter his body.
However, the man could not give a clear answer and experts suspected that the eel probably entered the large intestine through the anus.
While trapped there, it pierced the intestines and eventually made its way to the rest of the abdomen, where it remained for a time that could not be determined.
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