Snakes, Anyone?

Next time you have that feeling of butterflies in your stomach, think about this story. Yeter Yildirim, a 15 year old Turkish girl, had suffered from stomach pains for over five years. They were a constant torment to the girl. She had gone from a happy girl with lots of friends to a lonesome girl who suffered sever head aches and stomach pain. Her family was shunned by suspicious villagers in their little farming community. Eventually Yeter's family moved 80 miles away because they were being persecuted by the town. As her symptoms worsened, her family finally took her to a hospital.

The doctors x-rayed her and went to talk to her parents. They matter-of-factly stated that there would be no problem removing the snakes from the young girls stomach. "What snakes??" asked her shocked parents.

The x-rays showed three snakes living in the girl's stomach, water snakes that she had apparently swallowed as eggs while drinking from a stream. They hatched and lived there for 5 years before being discovered as the cause of her sickness. They were slightly thicker than string and about a foot long. She was fine after they were removed.

Daily Star June 28, 1979