A graphic video of a 4-foot ‘snake‘ pulled from a woman’s stomach has gone viral several times over, thanks to the unbelievable, frankly vomit-inducing nature of the hospital footage in which staff pull the creature from the unconscious woman’s mouth by hand.
A day in the life of a surgeon is never boring. Humans are strange, and the things pulled from stomachs and other cavities over the decades are even stranger.
In 2016, for instance, a man admitted to the hospital with stomach pains turned out to have swallowed 40 pocket knives. Yeah, that’s not weird. A few years prior, an elderly man suspected of having lung cancer actually had a pea plant growing in his lung. After its removal, he shook off the bizarre incident and had peas for lunch later that day.
Nothing, however, is quite as unsettling as the time hospital staff in Russia pulled a 4-foot ‘snake’ from a woman’s mouth, the end of the creature trailing from her stomach as even the doctor struggled to keep her terror in check.
Video of 4- Feet Snake Removal From Woman’s Stomach!!.. pic.twitter.com/wEySBHlxZh
— Medical Videos 💊 (@MindblowingClip) February 25, 2023
The exact story behind the gruesome scene remains unconfirmed. The accepted story, however, says that the woman arrived at the hospital with severe nausea. Taking images of her stomach, doctors found a strange, rope-like object lodged there.
After anesthetizing and intubating the woman, they used an endoscope to tug the mystery object out of her body from her mouth, at which point the true horror of the scene unfolded. Rather than a rope or similar object, it was a squirming, living thing.
Was the Creature Really a 4-Foot Snake?
Following the release of the stomach-churning footage, many outlets reported that the creature was a 4-foot snake that somehow slithered down her throat while she was sleeping. But does this theory hold water? Well, not really.
First of all, in order to get into the woman’s stomach, the entirety of the 4-foot snake would have had to climb into her open mouth, travel down her throat, venture all the way down her esophagus, and finally coil in her stomach. All while she remained asleep.
Once in her stomach, the ‘snake’ would have met some pretty unwelcoming stomach acid. Though essential for digestion, stomach acid is only about 2 steps away from battery acid. The odds of a snake surviving a full-body encounter with such a substance are slim to none.
Not to mention, the esophagus is actually collapsed, it’s not an open tunnel, which is why you have to swallow food rather than simply allowing it to slide down your throat.
In all likelihood, the 4-foot ‘snake’ wasn’t a snake at all but a worm. More specifically, an Ascaris worm – a large, parasitic roundworm that uses the bodies of other animals to mature from eggs to adult worms. They’re the most common parasitic worm in humans.
Does knowing it was probably a worm, not a snake, make you feel better or worse? If nothing else, the disgusting footage serves as a powerful reminder to always wash your hands.
