A 5cm-long live centipede was found in the ear of an elementary-school boy in Chiayi County’s Dalin Township (大林).
In the early morning of Oct. 25, the boy felt a sudden pain and heard abnormal sounds in one of his ears, so his parents immediately took him to see a doctor at Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital.
Emergency physician Lee Chen-wei (李振威) treated him.
Photo: Tseng Nai-chiang, Taipei Times
The boy was yelling because his ear hurt, Lee said on Monday.
Lee said that he took him into a consultation room for a checkup and discovered something black and long moving in his ear.
At first, he only told the boy and his parents that there seemed to be an unknown object in his ear, because he was worried it would make them too nervous, Lee said, adding that when he used forceps to remove the object, they were all shocked to see a struggling black centipede come out.
Photo courtesy of Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital
He said the boy was brave and did not cry, but did exclaim: “Yuck!”
As the boy’s ear canal had been slightly hurt by the centipede, Lee said he prescribed liquid antibiotics and painkillers, and conducted a hearing test and eardrum checkup to make sure no damage was done.
As centipedes like to be in dark, warm places, it probably crawled into the boy’s ear when he was asleep, Lee said, adding that Dalin Township is a rural area and the boy lives near farmlands.
People who live in rural areas and near brush or farmland should sleep with a mosquito net over their bed to keep centipedes and insects away, he said.
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