- The man, in his 30s, woke up from his snooze with severe itching and discomfort
- He went to hospital where a stunned doctor pulled the gecko from his head
- The gecko did not have a tail when it was rescued and medics have not found it
A horrified patient had to have a live gecko removed from his ear after the creature crawled into it as he took a nap.
The man, from Guangzhou, in southern China, had settled down for a snooze when he suddenly woke up with severe itching.
He could feel the little reptile ‘squirming’ inside his head and initially thought he had been invaded by a cockroach.
The tiny gecko was pulled from a man’s ear canal after the creature crawled into it as he took a nap
Doctor Tu Bo (pictured) removed the little reptile before providing helpful advice to anyone who might find themselves in a similar situation
The patient, who is in his 30s, went to see Doctor Tu Bo, of the First Affiliated Hospital at Jinan University, to get the creature removed.
The stunned medic shined a light into the ear as he grabbed at the gecko with a pair of tweezers.
He said: ‘The animal was facing inwards and when I touched it, it suddenly squirmed.’
Dr Tu used a sedative to ‘calm the creature down’ before the pulling it to safety.
Worryingly, the rescued gecko appeared to be missing a tail, which doctors have been unable to find in the man’s ear.
The gecko appeared to be missing a tail after the operation and doctors were unable to find it
Doctor Tu admitted that he had never come across such a case before but offered helpful advice to anyone else who may find themselves in a similar situation.
He said patients should ‘relax’ and drip vegetable oil into the ear to calm any unwanted invader down before going to a hospital as soon as possible.
It is not known what happened to the gecko after it was pulled from the man’s head.