14 DAY TRIAL // A teenager living in Bangladesh nearly died after he accidentally swallowed a live eel that somehow got stuck inside his throat. Luckily, surgeons at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital managed to recover the fish and save his life.
Following the intervention, the boy made a full recovery, and soon enough, he was allowed to return home to his family. The doctors who handled the case are convinced that, had they not helped him, the boy would have eventually died.
How the young boy swallowed the eel
In a case report in the journal Biomed Central, surgeons at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in Bangladesh's capital city explain that the boy told them that he swallowed the live eel quite by accident, while trying to hold it in his mouth.
Thus, it appears that, while fishing, the 16-year-old caught the eel and then grabbed hold of it with his mouth looking to free his hands to be able to capture another one. Unfortunately, the eel refused to sit still, and after wriggling about for a while, it eventually worked its way down the boy's throat.
The boy's family tried to pull the eel from the teenager's throat themselves. However, they failed to grab hold of it, and when the fish ventured even deeper inside the boy's body and disappeared from sight, they decided that it might not be such a bad idea to ask for help from doctors.
The intervention was rather tricky
To save the boy's life, surgeons first cut open his windpipe and stuck a tube inside it. This helped make sure that the 16-year-old's lungs got enough air to keep him alive. At one point, one of the eel's fins emerged from the whole that was helping the boy breathe.
To remove the fish from the boy's throat, specialists used a pair of forceps to grab it and then simply pulled it out. At the time it was recovered, the fish, identified as an Indian spiny eel measuring about 6.5 inches (roughly 16.5 centimeters) in length, was dead.
Not long after the procedure, the boy started feeling much better and was discharged from hospital. The doctors who treated him and saved his life can only hope that, should he decide to go fishing again anytime soon, he will pay closer attention to what he puts in his mouth.
“Avoidance of the tendency of holding the fish between teeth during fishing can prevent this life threatening condition,” said surgeon Kanu Saha with the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, as cited by DM. “Cases like this are very rare. He is very lucky to be alive,” he added.
