Online edition of Sunday Observer

A woman veterinary surgeon attached to the National Zoological Gardens inserted her bare hand into the mouth of a valuable two and half foot ornamental fish and removed two plastic multi-plug adaptor sockets it had swallowed the previous night.

The saga began when its owner, David Foenander, found their largest of his three South American red-tailed catfish (Phractoephalus Hemiliopterus) insert with a bulging stomach when he checked his ornamental aquarium built in to the wall of his sitting room for malfunction of the lighting and aeration supply. The failure was due to the two multi-plug sockets above the aquarium connecting the lights and oxygen supply wiring to the main plug point being accidentally dislodged and falling into the tank.

Veterinarian Jayanthi Alahakoon inserting her right hand into the mouth of the catfish that swallowed two multi-plug sockets while owner David Foenander and another hold the fish down in a plastic tub. Her left hand manipulates the obstacles in the belly. (Right) Smiles all around as one of the two swallowed sockets comes out. (Below - left) The catfish back in the aquarium built into the sitting room wall.

Foenander, an aquarist for over forty years and well known in the tropical fish trade, realised to his horror that the bulge in the belly of his prized fish were the two missing adaptor sockets.

"The fish that swallows a fair sized salaya with ease had gulped down the sockets. I knew it could not evacuate in naturally and it would die soon. My friends in the trade and a few city veterinarians I consulted told me it was impossible to open the stomach of a live fish, remove on obstacle, stitch the incision and expect it to be alive. I might as well fillet it for trying was their verdict", said Foenander.

Foenander, who was desperate to save his pet catfish which he had reared since it was purchased by him as a five inch fingerling, then contacted Dr. (Mrs.) Jayanthi Alahakoon, a zoo veterinarian. She examined the stricken fish and was of the opinion that the two plastic sockets should come out the same way they went in.

While Foenander and one of his aquaria staff held down the fish, Jayanthi Alahakoon inserted her right hand into the mouth of the fish and with her left hand pressing on the belly manipulated the sockets, centimetre by centimetre and one at a time, towards the gullet and got them out.

"Catfish can air-breath and that helped in the operation that took about forty minutes.

Thanks to an innovative vet, I must be having the only fish in the world to have swallowed two electrical adaptor sockets and lives to swim around", he said.