An Indian man had hundreds of maggots removed after a fly laid eggs in his ear, causing an infestation, the U.K.'s Daily Mail reported.
The man, only described as young, was sleeping when a housefly flew into his ear and laid the eggs, according to Dr. Vikram Yadav, who uploaded a stomach-turning YouTube video of him extracting the maggots from the patient's ear.
Yadav is seen using tweezers to remove the live larvae in small clumps from his ear and places them in a plastic tube. If the maggots, which were feeding on his flesh, were left alone they could have eventually made their way to his brain and killed him, according to the newspaper.
The man suffered from a condition known as aural myasis which believe it or not is common in tropical and subtropical regions. Hearing buzzing in the ear is a usual symptom along with an odorous discharge.
Treatment involves suffocating the maggots "so they come to the surface" and pulling them out one by one, the doctor said. He also used medication to prevent more eggs from hatching, according to the Daily Mail.
Aural myasis usually affects young children or those who are frail.
"If anybody sleeps, a child, an old person, and you see any houseflies there, put some cloth on their face so they don't enter into the orifices and lay their eggs," Yadav said. "Prevention is better."
Experts say the mortality rate for aural myasis is 8 percent.
