Backpacker brings back three-inch LEECH from travels in Vietnam - up her nose

Backpacker brings back three-inch LEECH from travels in Vietnam - up her nose

Mangalore Today News Network

Oct 13, 2014: Daniela Liverani carried the bloodsucker - which was as long as her finger and as thick as her thumb - in her nostril for a month before doctors removed it


Daniela Liverani was travelling around south-east Asia when she started suffering nosebleeds

A British backpacker brought an unwanted souvenir home from her travels in Vietnam - in the form of a slimy three-inch leech wedged up her nose.

Daniela Liverani was travelling around south-east Asia when she started suffering persistent nosebleeds.

The 24-year-old assumed it was nothing more than a burst blood vessel.

Days later, after she returned home to Edinburgh, she spotted something poking out from her right nostril and thought it was just a blood clot.

But last week, she was rushed into A&E at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary after discovering a leech had been living in her nose for a month.



The three-inch leech had been living in her nose for a month


Daniela, originally from Glasgow, said: “About two weeks before I came home from Asia, I started having nosebleeds.

“I’d fallen off a motorbike just before they started so at first I thought I must have burst a blood vessel.

“After I got home, the nosebleeds stopped and I started seeing something sticking out of my nostril. I just thought it was congealed blood from the nosebleeds.”

Even when the leech started to make its way out of her nose, bartender Daniela still thought it was a blood clot, reports the Daily Record.

She said: “I saw him so many times but I just sniffed him back up.

"I tried to blow him out and grab him but I couldn’t get a grip of him before he retreated back up my nose.

“When I was in the shower, he would come right out as far as my bottom lip and I could see him sticking out the bottom of my nose.

“So when that happened, I jumped out of the shower to look really closely in the mirror and I saw ridges on him. That’s when I realised he was an animal.

“My friend Jenny and I called NHS 24 and were told to get to accident and emergency as soon as possible.”