Eel jumps into girl's mouth

2006-09-03 14:52

Taipei - Doctors at a Taipei hospital were fighting to save a girl's life after an eel jumped into her mouth and ruptured her esophagus, a newspaper said on Sunday.

The Apple Daily said a 3-year-old girl was attacked by the eel a month ago and has been kept at the intensive care unit at the Mackay Memorial Hospital ever since.

According to the daily, the girl's father caught some eels from the sea in August and took them home to prepare for a meal.

As he was killing the eels, his daughter was standing by when one of the eels wriggled from her father's hands and flipped into her mouth.

Her father pulled the eel out of her mouth, but the eel's head had already entered and ruptured the girl's esophagus.

The girl was rushed to the Makcay Memorial hospital, but the wound and infection kept worsening, forcing doctors to perform one surgery on her neck and another on her chest. They also had to open a hole in her stomach so that she could be fed through a tube.

The girl remains in the intensive care unit of the Mackay Memorial Hospital, listed as in critical condition, the paper said.

The esophagus is the muscular tube in vertebrates through which ingested food passes from the mouth to the stomach. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA