Woman Waits 2 Days to Have Cockroach Removed from Her Ear
By Matthew Bossons
If a live insect burrowed into your ear, and was causing you immense discomfort, what would you do? We’re willing to bet you probably wouldn’t wait for two days to go to the hospital – which is exactly what one woman recently did in South China.
Last month, a Ms. Liao showed up at Dongguan’s Renkang Hospital to have a cockroach removed from her ear – two days after it initially crawled into her head and chewed a hole in her eardrum, according to a news report by Pear Video.
The insect entered the unnamed woman’s ear while she was sleeping on July 17.
Video screengrab via Pear Video
“I felt as if needles were being poked in my ear at that time,” South China Morning Post quotes Liao as stating. “I didn’t expect it would be a cockroach. I thought the pain was from when I tried to scoop out earwax with an earbud.”
When Liao finally realized a bug had taken up residence in her auditory canal, she dripped oil in her ear in an attempt to kill it.
“Later it seemed to have stopped moving and I was busy with work, so I left it there for two days before heading to the hospital,” said Liao, according to SCMP.
At Renkang Hospital, Doctor Huang removed the cockroach, which was of the German variety, from her ear. The hole bitten in Liao’s eardrum caused considerable bleeding, according to the Pear Video footage.
Video screengrab via Pear Video
Huang noted that most people seek speedy medical attention when their eardrum is broken, due to the considerable pain caused when the sensitive membrane is damaged. According to SCMP, Huang added that he generally sees one or two similar incidents each month and that most victims live in ground-floor apartments, in which “the environment is humid, there’s poor hygiene and it’s riddled with insects such as cockroaches.”
In late June, a similar case occurred in Shenzhen when a 2-centimeter-long cockroach was removed from a 52-year-old man’s ear. Much like Liao, the insect entered the man’s ear while he was sleeping and he endured the bug’s presence for six hours before visiting a hospital.
[Cover image via Pear Video]
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