A 33-year-old Chinese man who arrived at the emergency room with severe abdominal pain was found to have a live, foot-long eel inside his abdominal cavity.

According to Huaihua Daily, the man from Hunan was admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan Medical University with a pale face, excessive sweating, and intense stomach pain.

A CT scan revealed a foreign object that appeared to have punctured his stomach and entered the abdominal cavity. His abdomen had already become hard and rigid, prompting doctors to suspect potentially fatal peritonitis. As a result, they decided to perform emergency laparoscopic surgery.

During the operation, surgeons were shocked to discover a live eel swimming among the man’s internal organs. The eel had completely penetrated the intestinal wall and was freely moving within the abdominal cavity, posing a serious risk of infection if not removed immediately.

Using a clamp-like surgical instrument, doctors successfully extracted the eel, sutured the hole in the sigmoid colon, and thoroughly flushed the abdominal cavity with a saline solution to reduce the risk of infection.

Following the procedure, the man recovered well and was discharged from hospital. However, there has been no official word on what became of the eel.

The eel is an aquatic animal typically found in muddy-bottomed environments such as paddy fields, lakes, ponds, streams, and canals. Known for burrowing through soft soil, it is capable of piercing human intestines under certain circumstances.

Medical experts involved in the case did not clarify how the eel entered the man's colon, though public speculation quickly followed.

"Everyone knows how it got in," one commenter remarked.

“He must’ve sat on it accidentally,” another suggested.