In a truly gross, creepy-crawly turn of events, a 42-year-old woman in India had a live cockroach pulled out of her skull.
Selvi, a domestic worker from Injambakkam, suddenly woke up in the middle of the night with a “crawling sensation” inside her head. She was having difficulty breathing and complained of a severe headache. She knew this could not be normal.
“I spent the entire night in discomfort, sitting up and waiting for dawn to go to Stanley hospital after getting the reference of a doctor from my employer,” Selvi said.
A trip to the Stanley Medical College yielded an answer — a one-inch “fully grown cockroach” had lodged itself inside her “skull base, between the two eyes, close to the brain.”
“I could not explain the feeling but I was sure it was some insect. There was a tingling, crawling sensation. Whenever it moved, it gave me a burning sensation in my eyes,” Selvi said.
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Over the course of 45 minutes with the help of suction machines and forceps, the cockroach — which was still alive — was pulled out of Selvi’s head.
Physicians at the hospital said they’ve removed worms and flies from people before, but this was the first time they pulled out a cockroach.
Only a few days after Selvi’s ordeal, in China another cockroach made its way into a 60-year-old man’s head through his ear. The man — clearly with a very DIY attitude — tried to get the pesky roach by sticking toothpicks and tweezers in his ear canal. After three days, the man was finally able to kill the cockroach by spraying pesticide into his ear.
Alas, the now-dead cockroach was still stuck and the man was forced to go to the hospital. The doctors had more luck with removing the dead insect and pulled it out in less than a minute.
Danielle Tarasiuk is a multimedia journalist based in Los Angeles. Her work has been published on AllDay.com, Yahoo! Sports, KCET, and NPR-affiliate stations KPCC and KCRW. She’s a proud Sarah Lawrence College and USC Annenberg alumn.
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