Cockroach chews a hole in Chinese woman's eardrum after crawling in while she was asleep

A woman in southern China had a close call with a cockroach after the insect crawled into her ear and started chewing a hole in her eardrum, Chinese media reported.

A doctor at Renkang Hospital in Dongguan, Guangdong province, extracted the cockroach two days after it crawled into the 20-year-old woman’s ear while she was asleep on Tuesday, Guangzhou Daily reported on Thursday.

“I felt as if needles were being poked in my ear at that time,” the woman was quoted as saying. “I didn’t expect it would be a cockroach. I thought the pain was from when I tried to scoop out earwax with an earbud.”

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She later realised it was a bug and tried to kill it by putting some drops of oil in her ear.

“Later it seemed to have stopped moving and I was busy with work, so I left it there for two days before heading to the hospital,” she said.

Huang Dan, a doctor at the hospital, extracted the insect.

Huang said it was a German cockroach and it had nibbled a small hole in the woman’s eardrum, resulting in serious bleeding, according to footage posted on digital news platform Pear Video.

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He said he usually saw one or two similar cases a month, the newspaper reported.

“Most of the patients live on the first floor where the environment is humid, there’s poor hygiene and it’s riddled with insects such as cockroaches,” Huang was quoted as saying.

Huang said the eardrum was very sensitive and people with similar pain typically sought medical attention immediately because it was unbearable.