A Florida woman’s nightmare lasted nine days – the amount of time it took for doctors to remove a cockroach that had crawled into her ear while she was asleep. Katie Holley was jolted awake from the insect, and when she inserted a cotton swab into her ear, she pulled out small, dark brown pieces that looked like legs.
Katie rushed to a hospital with her husband, where doctors took 20 minutes to kill and remove the insect. However, most of the dead cockroach remained in her ear canal, and it was only nine days later that doctors managed to remove the insect completely from her ear.
Insects such as cockroaches burrowing into ears are commonly reported.
Apparently this happens more often than you would think. Here are some examples of foreign – and living – objects that have been reportedly found their way into people’s ears, nose, and other body parts.
Some people really love their pets, but for one woman in Portland, Oregon, having her pet python stuck in her ear gauge was a little too close for comfort.
In January last year, Ms Ashley Glawe posted on Facebook saying that she had to go to the emergency room because her ball python decided to slither into her gauged ear lobe.
A gauged ear lobe, a form of body modification, is an ear piercing hole that has been stretched over time.
“I like froze instantly,” the 23-year-old told news station WLS-TV. “I didn’t move because I really thought he was like attacking the side of my head.”
A man in China found himself in a doubly unfortunate situation when he discovered that a cockroach that had been giving him earaches had given birth to 25 babies.
The 19-year-old from Chang’an had woken up in the middle of the night with a painful and itchy right ear, reported British newspaper The Independent in 2015.
When a doctor examined his ear, he found a female cockroach measuring close to 8mm. After removing the insect, the doctor found 25 more baby roaches. It was believed that the female roach had laid the eggs inside the man’s ear “several weeks earlier”, according to reports. The doctor reportedly said that if the man had sought medical treatment any later, his ear “would have been destroyed”.
Then there is this: