A mom in California went against doctor's orders and did what she thought was best for her 7-year-old son, Paul, who had a bump just above his knee that just wasn't healing.
After a trip to the doctor, where Paul was given antibiotics for what the doctor diagnosed was a staph infection, the bump got even bigger, according to The Huffington Post. So Rachel Franklin squeezed it, and out pops a tiny little rock. Rachel realized after further inspection that it isn't a rock, but a tiny sea snail that had set up camp and lived under Paul's skin.
"I came home and his knee was the size of an orange and hot to the touch, and he's limping," Rachel said, according to The Cosmopolitan. The antibiotics seemed to have helped, but once the wound turned black, she took action and popped it.
"I thought it was a rock," Rachel said. "Whatever it was, it just came out in one piece."
"I realized it wasn't a rock. It has whirls on it," Rachel added. "I turn it over and I think -- I might have laughed out loud. I said, 'Paul! This is a snail!'"
The snail was able to survive in the tissue, as it is known as Littorina scutulata, a type of sea snail that can survive in a wide range of temperatures and waters, according to biologist Dan Riskin. The environment inside Paul's knee must have mimicked that environment, although his body was trying to reject the foreign object.
Paul's father Ken recalls a trip to the beach at Spooner's Cove, Calif., where Paul fell on a nest of snail eggs, which is how he believes a sea snail got inside his son's skin, the Daily Mail reported.
Paul, Rachel and the tiny sea snail, named Turbo by Paul, were featured on an episode of "Monsters Inside Me" on Animal Planet Thursday.
"It was too strange to be true," Rachel said. "Paul -- in typical boy style -- just thinks it's cool."
