Tao Jiayuan complained of a sore throat two months ago and his mom just thought that he had just caught a cold and gave him some medicine but it did not work.

His parents decided to have him checked in the hospital after the boy gradually lost weight and had trouble in breathing.

Doctors then found the real reason of Tao’s conditon, a 10-centimetre-long leech living on Tao’s windpipe. In this connection, an operation was performed to remove the leech at Nan’an Division of Yibin No. 2 Hospital, in Yibin City in southwest China’s Sichuan province, according to reports.

Reports also said that the leech was still alive and unaffected by the anaesthetic the doctors had given to the boy.

Dr. Chen Bing who was in-charge of the operation said in the reports that it is possible for leeches to stay alive in a human’s nasal cavity or throat.

Leeches are commonly found in fresh water environments such as creeks, rice fields and ponds.

“He must have drunk stream water when working in the field,” Tao Chuanhua, the boy’s father told the reporters.