Cockroach crawls into man's throat, gets stuck in phlegm

Srinagar, Sep 10: One night when Chinese man was sleeping, a strange sensation of something crawling inside his nose woke him up. The object slipped down his throat, he coughed but wasn't able to dislodge it. Unsure of what happened, the man went back to sleep.

He continued his daily routine the next morning, but noticed that he had developed an unsually bad breath despite maintaining good oral hygiene.

He also began coughing up yellow sputum, which eventually led him to seek medical attention, NDTV reported.

The man, resident of Haikou in China's Hainan province, went to Hainan hospital and consulted an ENT specialist. From there he was referred to Dr Lin Ling, a respiratory and critical care physician.

After conducted a chest CT scan, a shadow was seen in the posterior segment of the right lung lobe, suggesting a foreign object.

The man was recommended a bronchoscopy to further investigate the issue. “During the procedure, I clearly saw something with wings in the bronchus,” Dr Lin said.

“The foreign body was wrapped in a lot of phlegm. After removing the surrounding phlegm, we discovered it was a cockroach.”

The bug was carefully removed from the man's trachea, and the area was cleaned thoroughly. The foul odor the patient had experienced disappeared soon after. He made a full recovery and was discharged the next day.

While Dr Lin noted that such unusual cases are rare, he advised anyone who suspects they have a foreign body lodged in their lower respiratory tract to seek medical attention immediately.