In March 1997, Brian Cranshaw, a chemical engineer from West
London, returned to the UK after spending the previous six months
overseeing work at a petrochemicals plant in Nigeria.
During his first week back, his wife complained that he
seemed to have difficulty listening properly. Brian suggested that his
ears had not fully recovered from the air pressure changes
experienced during his flight.
Over the next two weeks, Brian's condition worsened as he started
to feel tickling sensations deep in his ears. Thinking the trouble
was caused by loosened ear wax, he attempted to clean his ears
with a ball-point pen.
When he pressed it into his right ear, he heard a cracking
sound and saw the pen covered in a yellow goo.
He went to his local GP claiming had punctured his ear drum. The
GP reached into Brian's right ear with a pair of tweezers and
pulled out what appeared to be an insect antenna.
During the examination Brian was horrified to learn that he had a total
of 5 African cockroaches living in his head. Four cockroaches were
alive and one cockroach was dead, presumably crushed by Brian's
pen attack.
An investigation revealed that when Brian was in
Nigeria, a female African cockroach must have laid numerous eggs
in the toiletries bag where he kept his cotton buds. When he was cleaning
his ears, he was also transferring the cockroach eggs to his
inner ear where they started to hatch.
