Eel be embarrassed in the morning: Hospital removes asparagus sized eel from man's rectum

It is thought the eel was later successfully removed from the patient's body. (Rex Features)

It's quite possible you'll never look at jellied eels, or indeed asparagus, the same way again.

An unidentified man in Auckland presented doctors with a slippery problem last week when he was found to have an eel stuck in his rectum.

The man was sent for X-rays and a scan, which confirmed the creature was firmly lodged where the sun rarely shines.

"The eel was about the size of a decent sprig of asparagus and the incident is the talk of the place," a hospital source told the New Zealand Herald

"Doctors and nurses have come across people with strange objects that have got stuck where they shouldn't be before, but an eel has to be a first."

It is thought the eel was later successfully removed from the patient's body. It is unclear how the creature became stuck inside the man in the first place.

Though a seemingly rare occurrence, an eel slithering into somewhere it shouldn't did also feature in the Chinese media last year when a Mr Zhang Nan had to have an eel removed from his bladder.

The creature had entered his body via his penis and had wriggled into his urethra and up into his bladder. Zhang Nan was bathing with eels at the time to cleanse his skin.

Back in New Zealand a hospital spokesman later told local press that "an adult male presented at Auckland City Hospital this week with an eel inside him," but did not comment further "out of respect for the patient's right to privacy."