Astonished surgeons have removed a two-inch long fir tree growing inside a patient's lungs.
Doctors thought Artyom Sidorkin, 28, had cancer when he began coughing up blood and complaining of agonising chest pains.
But as they operated to remove a tumour the medics were amazed to discover the perfectly formed spruce thriving inside the lung.
"I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev at Izhevsk Hospital in Russia.
Doctors believe that Artyom breathed in a tiny seed which then began growing in his lung and that the sharp pains were the plant's needle-like leaves digging into his lung.
"It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me," he explained.
Doctors thought Artyom Sidorkin, 28, had cancer when he began coughing up blood and complaining of agonising chest pains.
But as they operated to remove a tumour the medics were amazed to discover the perfectly formed spruce thriving inside the lung.
"I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev at Izhevsk Hospital in Russia.
Doctors believe that Artyom breathed in a tiny seed which then began growing in his lung and that the sharp pains were the plant's needle-like leaves digging into his lung.
"It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me," he explained.
