- Mr Hendrik Helmer from Darwin, Australia, woke up with pain in his right ear
- He realised something was in there and unsuccessfully tried to vacuum it out
- The pain escalated and so Mr Helmer rushed to seek medical attention
- A doctor pulled out an inch-long cockroach once it had died
Hendrik Helmer, from Darwin, revealed that he was recently forced to seek help from a doctor after a cockroach burrowed into his right ear while he was asleep – and refused to come out.
It even defied Mr Helmer’s vacuum cleaner.
Disturbing: The cockroach burrowed into Mr Helmer's ear while he slept (file picture)
The situation sucked: The cockroach even resisted Mr Helmer's vacuum cleaner (file picture)
Mr Helmer was alerted to the presence of the unwanted tenant by a sharp pain in his ear, which woke him up.
He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that his initial worry was that a poisonous spider – of which there are many down under – had burrowed its way into his ear canal.
The pain rapidly got worse so Mr Helmer tried to suck out the critter with a vacuum cleaner.
When that failed to work his flatmate decided that it would be best to seek medical help.
The doctor’s initial strategy, thinking the insect was small, was to put olive oil down the ear, but that only made matters worse.
The cockroach simply burrowed further in.
Mr Helmer said: ‘Near the 10 minute mark ... somewhere about there, he started to stop burrowing but he was still in the throes of death twitching.’
The doctor eventually pulled the cockroach out with forceps and its size astonished them both - it was an inch long.
Mr Helmer told ABC: ‘She (the doctor) said, “You know how I said a little cockroach, that may have been an underestimate.”
‘They said they had never pulled an insect this large out of someone's ear.’
While Mr Helmer hasn’t changed his nightime routine, his friends have apparently taken to wearing headphones in bed.
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