A huge pulsating leech has been removed from a pensioner’s throat after he complained for more than two months about his itchy cough.
Footage of the removal, which has surfaced online, shows the 10cm-long creature being pulled from the man’s throat, where it had been growing.
The patient, known as Mr Li, had been trying to cure his itchy throat and bloody cough but was repeatedly misdiagnosed, reported the Mirror.
The mystery was solved when Mr Li sought out specialists at the Xingwen County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the city of Yibin, China.
Doctor Zhang Dadong performed an endoscopy and immediately discovered the leech living on the walls of his windpipe.
When the creature proved difficult to retrieve, Dadong and his colleagues used an aerosol sedative and pulled it out using a pair of forceps.
