Prickly hit

Some people fear injections, as being pierced with a needle is painful. Others, however, are fearless when it comes to being pricked.

Imagine the surprise of doctors at a hospital in Mariscal Cáceres, Peru, when they found needles inside the stomach of a young patient brought there by his mother.

The doctors at Hospital II-2 in Tarapoto immediately performed emergency surgery to remove eight needles from the tummy of the two-year-old son of Narly Olórtegui Pisco. The two-hour operation saved the boy's life, and he was reported to be recovering.

How the toddler was able to swallow eight needles one by one without injuring his throat was as shocking as learning that the needles were discards that had been used to inject farm animals.

Pisco told Jam Press she was busy working and did not notice her son, whom she brought to work as there was no one to look after him, swallowing the needles.

In the Philippines, another "needle" injury was recently reported in Iligan City. The victim, John Paul Diguelo, also had to be operated on to save his life.

Diguelo and his brothers are divers who earn a living by spearfishing. He was injured while they were catching fish called "balo" one night.

Diguelo's brothers heard him scream, and when they turned a light on him, they saw a needlefish had embedded its sharp beak into his forehead, and he was bleeding.

The brothers rushed Diguelo to the hospital with the slender fish's beak still on his forehead.

Surgeons had to slice some skin off Diguelo's forehead to remove the fish, whose beak had penetrated one inch into his forehead but did not puncture his skull.

Needlefish attacks are common in the Philippines, and other fishers had their own encounters with a "balo" in the past.