A 31-year-old Indian man reportedly had a live 2-foot-long eel removed from his abdomen and nearly lost his life.

According to reports, the eel chewed through his intestines after the man shoved the creature up his anus.

The shocking incident occurred in Vietnam.

“Việt Đức Hospital in Hà Nội on Monday morning said that the hospital’s doctors successfully performed emergency surgery to save the patient’s life,” Vietnam News reports.

Doctors pull 26-inch EEL out of a man's backside after he forced the live creature into his anus (along with a lemon)… and it started to bite his large intestine https://t.co/6L8rp35N4A pic.twitter.com/IEitSKfY9j

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) July 31, 2024

Vietnam News reports:

On July 27, the emergency department of the hospital received a male patient, 31 years old, an Indian national, who arrived in a state of severe abdominal pain. Upon obtaining the patient’s medical history, it was revealed that at around 12pm on July 27, he had inserted a large eel into his anus.

The patient was immediately examined, underwent imaging, tests and an ultrasound. The X-ray images showed a radiopaque skeleton lying horizontally in the abdominal cavity from left to right.

Lê Nhật Huy, Deputy Director of the Colorectal and Pelvic Floor Surgery Centre at Việt Đức Hospital, stated that the hospital had promptly arranged a team of endoscopy experts and anesthesiologists to perform a colonoscopy in the attempt to remove the foreign object through the anus.

Unable to reach the eel via the anus and with the patient’s pain increasing, the team decided to perform emergency surgery, according to Huy.

Upon opening the abdomen, the doctors discovered a live eel approximately 65cm long and 10cm in circumference in the patient’s abdominal cavity.

Vietnamese doctors removed a meter-long eel from an Indian man's stomach.
The man put the eel in his anus and it moved into his intestines and started eating them. The fish was surgically removed from the man's stomach. pic.twitter.com/fBWLItC4CV

— Memet Aksakal (@aksakal_memet) August 2, 2024

“The eel had bitten through the patient’s rectum and colon to escape into the abdominal cavity,” Huy said, according to Vietnam News.

From the New York Post:

Doctors attempted to remove the foreign object through the man’s anus — but they discovered a large lime that he had also inserted blocking the way.

Instead, doctors opted for an emergency surgery.

They sliced open the the patient’s torso and found the live eel, stretching more than 25 inches long and roughly 4 inches in diameter.

The creature and the lime were both removed.

After checking for any additional foreign objects hiding inside the man, they stitched him up. Surgeons also performed a colostomy to prevent fecal matter from passing through the cut made by the eel’s bite.