WHAT DO COCKROACHES AND HEARING LOSS HAVE IN COMMON? MORE THAN YOU THINK
By Olive Nughs, Arkansas Republic Journal
Arkansas(AP)–Ever wonder what the difference is between snakes on a plane and cockroaches in an ear? Well, one is a movie, while the other is real. Just ask Arkansas domiciliary Paul Harold. Mr. Harold was having an ordinary evening Monday night. He laid down to sleep after putting his daughter to bed and chatting with his wife. He was rudely awakened at 12:40PM, however, by America’s latest health scourge: a cockroach climbing into his ear. After unsuccessfully attempting to pry the little bugger out of his ear, Mr. Harold gently awoke his wife and asked her to try. After several unsuccessful (but very gross) attempts at removal by his wife, Mr. Harold proceeded to the emergency room of the local hospital, where trained medical professionals removed the roach before it did any permanent hearing damage.
According to Mr. Harold, when the bug was removed it was still alive. "He was just wiggling around in there the whole time. It was pretty painful. I had trouble driving to the hospital with it wiggling. The whole time I was driving I was thinking, ‘How do I explain this to a police officer if I get pulled over?’" It was a big roach, too. The hospital staff admired its size after pulling it from Mr. Harold’s ear. "I couldn’t believe it fit in my ear," said Mr. Harold.
Mr. Harold is but the latest victim of a disturbingly common health problem. C. Chandrassakan Lupta, the Ear Roach Specialist at the University of Arkansas for the Medical Sciences, places ear roaches as the fourth most threatening health condition to modern Americans, behind smoking, obesity, and lighting one’s underpants on fire. "Ear roaches or aurae roachae are much more common than people think: last year alone over 1 in 25 Americans suffered from this disease. And it can do serious hearing damage if not treated medically." Dr. Gupta said that efforts have been made to raise the public’s awareness of auraue roachae, "but nobody is listening." Well, maybe that’s because people have roaches in their ears.
As for Mr. Harold, he considers himself lucky: "I would have to say that I’m blessed. At least it [the roach] didn’t go up my nose."