FOR most of us, the only kind of souvenir we expect to find on a beach is a shell. But one unlucky boy got a lot more than he'd hoped for, with a sea snail hitching a ride inside his leg.

Four-year-old Paul Franklin from Orange County, US, was on a family camping holiday when he fell on some rocks and grazed his knee.

Initially his mother Rachael didn't think much of the injury, but she grew suspicious when it didn't heal properly.

"It was just a little owie, but one that kept seeping and never quite scabbed up," she told the Orange County Register.

Paul reopened the cut twice over the next 10 days and doctors suspected a staph infection when it became red, swollen and hot.

But Rachael then saw what looked like black puss coming from the wound and decided it needed draining.

Imagine her shock when she squeezed the wounded knee and discovered not just discharge, but a small sea snail which was still moving around inside its hard shell.

media_camera Against the doctor's suggestion, mum Rachael, at left squeezed the swollen wound to drain it. Picture: AP

Paul's father Ken believes he must have fallen into a nest of snail eggs during the beach trip to Spooner's Cove, California.

The family has kept the snail as a pet.

media_camera Along with the discharge popped out a snail. Picture: AP

Originally published as The kind of souvenir you really don't want