A youth development worker was in a flap today after being rushed to hospital to have a MOTH removed from his ear.
Stunned Jason Chinn, 40, was watching football when the insect buzzed into his right lobe and lodged itself on his ear drum.
He leapt of the couch and desperately tried to shake it loose before reaching for a toothpick to try and tease the creature out.
Jason, of Plymouth, Devon, even attached a vacuum cleaner to his ear in a desperate bid to rid himself of the bug, which continued to buzz loudly in his head.
But he eventually admitted defeat and drove himself to hospital at 2am – two hours after the insect first become lodged in his ear.
Doctors then extracted it using a surgical vacuum, before he took the ‘trophy’ home to show stunned wife Claire, 33.
He said: ”It flew right into my ear and I could feel it flapping away in there. It lodged itself on my ear drum.
”I couldn’t quite believe it at first but I could hear it buzzing away. It was really loud, like having something flapping around inside your head.
”It was absolutely horrible. I tried everything to get it out, even sucking it out with the vacuum cleaner.
”I bent over and shook my head about, I held my nose and blew as I hard as I could but it just wouldn’t come out. All the time it’s wings were going 10 to the dozen.
”I was desperate to get rid of it and went and got a toothpick and very carefully tried to get it out but it didn’t work. I went and woke Claire up and told her, who couldn’t quite believe it.
”I then had the idea of using the vacuum, so I went and got the old Dyson and put it to my ear. But that wouldn’t budge it either.”
Dad-of-one Jason was watching a recording of Match of the Day when the moth entered his ear at around midnight on Monday.
He initially shooed it away before it rested on his ear lobe, before nestling deep inside his head, where it buzzed away for over half an hour.
It eventually died but Jason drove to Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, where it was extracted by doctors who handed the moth to him to take home as evidence, which he showed to disbelieving Claire.
Jason’s hearing has since completely recovered – his only injury was a scratch from the toothpick.
He added: ”The doctor had a look in my ear and confirmed that there was a moth down there. He said he’d never dealt with anything quite like it before.
”The doctors had a bit of a brain storm and came back with this little surgical vacuum. It was really painful because it was right down on my ear drum, but it came out in the end.
”I told the doctor I had to take the moth home with me, so I could prove to Claire what had happened.
”The whole thing was very, very strange. People I’ve told have burst into laughter.”
A spokesman for Derriford Hospital yesterday confirmed medics successfully removed the moth using a high-powered surgical vacuum.
