Hendrik Helmer went through excruciating pain after a larger than average cockroach pushed its way into his ear. In Australia, he checked into a medical center after his attempts of getting it out with a vacuum cleaner did not go as planned.
“I was hoping it wasn’t a poisonous spider. I was hoping it didn’t bite me,” Helmer told 105.7 ABC Darwin radio.
Helmer was in such pain, he tried sucking the mystery insect out of his ear canal with a vacuum cleaner, to no avail.
After prompting from a friend, Helmer went to the hospital where the doctor said she believed a “little cockroach” was to blame. In an attempt to get the roach out, the doctor poured olive oil down Helmer’s ear, which caused the pest to go down further into the canal.
Eventually, the doctor used a pair of forceps to pull the insect from its temporary home. However, the roach was far from “little.”
“She said, ‘you know how I said a little cockroach? That may have been an underestimate,’” Helmer said of the doctor’s reaction. The roach that had burrowed in Helmer’s ear measured 2 cm long.
“They said they had never pulled an insect this large out of someone’s ear,” Helmer said.
Helmer added he would be taking “added precautions” while sleeping after the incident.
Agencies/Canadajournal