Woman lives with 3-inch leech inside her nose for a month

This is the stuff that nightmares are made of: Daniela Liverani thought she was having nosebleeds caused by a motorcycle accident; instead, it turned out that a 3-inch-long leech had decided to move into her nostril, and had been living there for about a month.

The 24-year-old from Edinburgh told BBC Radio Scotland that she thought she had a blood clot in her nose, the result of a crash she was in during a trip to Vietnam. While in the shower, what she thought was the blood clot would "come out quite far, about as far as my lip," but for reasons unknown Liverani never decided to pull it out. Finally, while looking in a mirror she saw ridges on the clot and realized it was something else.

It took 30 minutes for emergency room personnel (who were "equally horrified and intrigued") to pull the leech out. Experts say Liverani could have picked it up from the water in Vietnam, and it was likely that size when it went up her nose. Liverani kept the leech — which she named Mr. Curly, because this story isn't bizarre enough — for one night, then boiled him and threw him in the trash.

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