Perhaps as a child you thought the story of the old lady who swallowed a fly was a bit far-fetched? It’s not like swallowing a fly is likely to do major damage. Clearly, by the time she goes as far as swallowing a cat, you think: “Yes, that might cause her to be really unwell”. But “perhaps she’ll die”? After swallowing a fly? You suspect that the song’s writer just found an easy rhyme and stuck with it.
Truth proved stranger than fiction in July, when a humble insect caused a Taiwanese newsreader to spend a day in A&E. The pesky mosquito flew straight into her mouth while she was delivering a live bulletin. A consummate professional, Huang Ching continued to broadcast as if nothing had happened. She later remarked that it would have been “impolite” to spit it out. But when she began to choke, bosses at the China Television Co cut to the ad-break so she could get medical help, and so that they could draft in a replacement presenter.
The flying pest got lodged on her windpipe, causing her to have a major asthma attack. Fortunately the mosquito didn’t do any major damage, and the newsreader was released from hospital the next day. “I never expected a mosquito to have such a great power. It really gave me a bad day,” Ching told the China Times. But, we suspect, it was a much worse day for the mosquito