Amazed medics have removed a nugget of plasticine that got stuck in the ear of a six-year-old girl three years ago.
Her parents, according to local media in Moscow, Russia, had been completely unaware of the blockage until they noticed their daughter, now nine, had hearing problems.
They were astonished when doctors at the city’s Pushkin Children’s Hospital told them the cause was a now rock-hard lump of the putty-like plasticine.
One snap seen in local media shows the young patient being examined at the hospital as a doctor tries to remove the blockage.
After the op, the delighted girl, who had not been named, told the doctor: “I can hear!”
The hospital’s head of the ear, nose and throat department. Bogdan Yuryevich Kuleshov said: “It was only three years later that the family turned to the children’s clinic.
“The piece of plasticine fit perfectly in the eardrum.
“We immediately removed the foreign body, without anaesthesia. The child even exclaimed in surprise: ‘I can hear!’
“The membrane and ear canal were not damaged during this time.
“But in the future, the schoolgirl should not try this sort of thing again. It is very uncomfortable to walk around for three years with plasticine in the ear.”