A 31-year-old Indian man was admitted on 27 July 2024 to Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi after experiencing severe abdominal pain. According to his medical history, earlier that day he had inserted a live eel into his anus.
Imaging, including X-rays, revealed a foreign object in his abdominal cavity, showing what appeared to be a “skeleton” lying horizontally across the abdomen. The hospital assembled a team of endoscopy experts and anesthesiologists and attempted removal via colonoscopy, but the surgeons encountered an unexpected obstruction: a large lemon, described in some reports as a lime, blocking the rectum and preventing access to the eel.
As the man’s pain worsened, the team opted for emergency abdominal surgery. Upon opening the abdomen, they found a live eel approximately 65 centimeters long and 10 centimeters in circumference. According to the deputy director of the hospital’s Colorectal and Pelvic Floor Surgery Centre, Le Nhat Huy, the eel had bitten through the patient’s rectum and colon to escape into the abdominal cavity.
The surgeons removed the eel alive and separately extracted the lemon through the anus. After confirming there were no other foreign objects, they sutured the perforations in the rectum and colon. However, because the rectum had been heavily contaminated and fecal material had leaked into the abdominal cavity, the surgical team created a colostomy to divert feces away from the repaired area.
Doctors noted that while the hospital had previously treated cases involving foreign bodies inserted into patients’ rectums, such as bottles, glass cups, or sex toys, this was the first time they had encountered a live animal in such a situation. Medical staff issued a warning that eels are capable of surviving in low-oxygen conditions and can bite through the gastrointestinal tract, making insertion of live animals into the anus extremely dangerous and potentially life-threatening.
