(CMR) A crocodile in Florida is recovering after doctors surgically removed a shoe from its stomach recently.
Anuket, a 10.5-foot, 341-pound crocodile from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, swallowed the shoe after it fell from the foot of a person who was ziplining at the zoo in December.
The surgery was performed by the University of Florida College of Veterinary Hospital.
According to a Facebook post on the hospital's page, the Nile crocodile was taken to the facility on February 5, two months after it was witnessed eating the shoe and subsequently seen regurgitating it – then eating it right back up again.
Initially, efforts made to flush out the sneaker at the farm and the hospital were unsuccessful.
During the crocodile's most recent visit, the hospital said that zoo medicine resident Garrett Fraess attempted to remove the shoe by reaching his arm up and through the crocodile’s esophagus but was unsuccessful.
“The zoo medicine team then took Anuket for surgery, where Dr. Adam Biedrzycki, a large animal surgeon, attempted to manipulate the shoe through an incision and push it from the stomach to the esophagus, where Fraess hoped to be able to feel and grab hold of the shoe to pull it out. That effort, too, failed,” the hospital said.
The doctors then performed a gastrotomy that allowed easier access to the crocodile’s stomach and removed the shoe in a short period of time.
The crocodile has since returned to the park and has been recuperating well.
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