Chennai man 'holds' live fish in mouth while fishing, chokes to death

The daily wage earner had tried to remove the fish but failed. He then attempted to rush back home but collapsed on the way. (Representational image)

A Chennai man lost his life while fishing at a lake when a fish, he had put in his mouth for safe-keeping, got stuck in his throat and choked him. The incident happened on Tuesday morning in Madurantakam, when 29-year-old daily labourer Manikandan was out fishing alone, the Times of India reported.

An expert at catching fish by hand, Manikandan usually fished with friends, but on Tuesday, he had gone alone and thus had nobody to hold the fish. As he waded into the shallow waters of Keelavalam Lake, he caught two fish with his bare hands, but since he had nowhere to keep the catch, he put one into his mouth while attempting to catch more with his free hand. The fish in his mouth, however, wiggled into his throat and got stuck in his windpipe.

Manikandan panicked as he struggled to breathe. He rushed out of the water and attempted to remove the fish. He then began to rush home but collapsed on the way, the police said. When residents tried to pull the fish -- identified locally as ‘panangottai' -- out of Manikandan's throat, they found that the fish's sharp fins had gotten lodged in his windpipe. He was then rushed to Chengalpet Government Medical College Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival, the publication reported.

A similar incident had happened in Thailand in 2022 when a fish leaped out of the water and into a fisherman's mouth before getting stuck in the windpipe. As the fish wiggled further down the windpipe, it cut off the man's oxygen supply and causing him to clutch at his throat and gasp. He was rushed to the hospital, where an X-ray revealed a spiky fish, Anabas, stuck between his throat and nasal cavity, a New York Post report said.

Doctors had to operate on the man to extract the blood-covered fish. “The chances of this happening are very low. I have never seen this kind of case before,” Sermsri Pathompanichrat, an officer at the hospital that treated the patient, told the Viral Press.