Posted by on April 23, 2005 at 08:26:20:
A BRITISH holidaymaker on a diving expedition had his thumb bitten off by an eel - after trying to feed it a sausage.
Matt Butcher, 32, was diving off the Similan Islands, near Phuket, Thailand, when the 7ft razor teethed moray eel attacked.
He said: ' She seemed quite playful and I took a sausage from the pocket of my vest and threw it to her.'
But the eel latched on to the thumb of his left hand. Mark added: 'I couldn't get my thumb out of her mouth once she had started biting.
'She ate it and swam away. I didn't have time to reach for my knife.' Mark, from Stanstead, Essex, has been told surgeons may be able to transplant one of his big toes to replace his thumb