News Corners

A Chinese man who tried a beauty treatment for bathing with live eels was left in agony – when one slipped up his penis.

Vain Zhang Nan, 56, had been told bathing with eels would make him look years younger because they nibbled off layers of dead skin.

So he bought ten from a local market, in the city of Honghu, Hubei Province, and decided to give it a try at home.

But one of the 6in long elvers squirmed up his urethra and swam right into his bladder.

He needed a three-hour operation to remove the eel – by which time it was dead – .

Zhang said: “I climbed in the bath and could feel the eels nibbling my body, then I felt a severe pain.

“I tried to grab the eel to pull it out again but it was too slippery and disappeared.”

Initially, he was too embarrassed to seek help but when the eel didn’t reappear naturally he went to the Wuhan People’s Hospital.

Doctors used an ultrascan to locate the eel in Zhang’s bladder and operated to remove it.