A month ago, a young female tourist named Lina was visiting the aquarium and wanted to take a close-up photo of an alligator with her mobile phone. Unfortunately, she accidentally dropped her phone into the water. This 14-year-old alligator named Gina quickly mistook the phone for food and swallowed it. Surprisingly, the phone could still normally receive signals while inside Gina's stomach: if you dialed Lina's number, the ringing could be heard from inside the crocodile's belly.
According to reports, Gina will undergo a full-body X-ray examination next week to determine the exact location of the phone inside her body. Since surgery poses significant risks to both the veterinarian and the alligator, and because reptiles take a long time to heal from wounds, retrieving the phone through surgery would only be considered as a last resort. African alligators have long lifespans, and the veterinarians do not want Gina's health to be affected by swallowing the phone. (Gao Yijun)
Aquarium staff member Alexandra said that after swallowing the phone, Gina became increasingly dispirited, lost her appetite, and was even less willing to move around. She also showed no interest in live prey that she used to love. The veterinarian stated that Gina might be enduring gastrointestinal pain. Currently, this alligator has undergone enema therapy, but the problematic phone has yet to be excreted.
Lina mentioned that the zoo authorities initially did not believe the story of "the alligator eating a phone." Now, she only hopes to recover the memory card from her phone so as not to lose contact details of her close friends and the photos stored on the phone.
People’s Daily Online, January 23 - An African alligator at an aquarium in Dnipropetrovsk, eastern Ukraine, recently had some trouble: it developed gastrointestinal issues and stopped eating after accidentally swallowing a visitor's phone that fell into the water. However, the phone performed well despite its unusual location, continuing to function and ringing periodically.