Hospitalization for eel in the ass: a growing global problem?

For all you liberated Savage Love devotees, let this be a cautionary tale about things you shouldn't consider sticking where the sun don't shine.

While stories abound about people seeking medical attention for various unusual things stuck in their rectums, they're usually inanimate objects, not living creatures (beyond the urban myth of gerbilling by celebrities, of course).

The New Zealand Herald is reporting that a man was hospitalized in Auckland to have an eel, about the size of an asparagus stalk, removed from his rectum.

No details have been divulged about how the eel managed to slip through his back door.

However, the Kiwi man was more fortunate than a 59-year-old Chinese chef who was reported in 2010 to have suffered from extensive internal injuries when his friends shoved an eel up his ass as a prank while he was passed out drunk. He eventually died from his injuries.

That one should have had you shuddering but if not, there's more. Yes, more.

Last year, a 56-year-old Chinese man was reported to be bathing with eels in a spa treatment to cleanse his skin (similar to treatments that involve fish eating dead skin off feet). However, things went askew when one adventurous one took an unfortunate shine to his male appendage. The eel entered his penis, causing severe pain. It worked its way up his urethra, and lodged itself in his bladder. He had to have emergency surgery to have it removed.

And believe it or not (thanks, Ripley), all of these examples were preceded by the 2008 case of a 14-year-old boy who had a fish swim up his penis. (Cringe.)

According to reports, he was cleaning his aquarium. While he claimed that while he was holding a fish in his hand, he went to the toilet and the fish slipped from his hand and entered his urethra while he was urinating. (Talk about swimming upstream. We'll leave it up to you to fill in the fishy—sorry— gaps in his story.) It made its way into his bladder, where it had to be surgically removed.

Accordingly, doctors presumably advise that the only living creature allowed in your trousers should be a certain species of snake.

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig.