Doctors in India removed a live cockroach from a woman’s nose after she woke up with a “tingling, crawling sensation” in her nostril, according to the New Indian Express.

The cockroach was living in the woman’s skull close to her brain, and was squirming when doctors removed it.

“It was alive. And it didn’t seem to want to come out,” Dr. M N Shankar, head ENT at Stanley Medical College Hospital in Chennai, India, told the Times of India.

Selvi, a 42-year-old who lives in Chennai, went to sleep last Tuesday night feeling completely normal, but woke up around midnight with extreme discomfort. After initially trying to shrug it off, the pain got worse, and her son-in-law took her to a local hospital.

One doctor at the hospital suggested it was a pain that would pass over time, while another suspected a nasal growth. Selvi, however, was convinced that something was “crawling,” according to the Deccan Chronicle.

“Whenever it moved, it gave me a burning sensation in my eyes,” she said.

Selvi ended up at Stanley on Wednesday morning, where after a nasal endoscopy, doctors found the cockroach sitting on her skull. Doctors suspect that the bug crawled up her nostril and got stuck, unable to turn around.

It took doctors 45 minutes to remove the vile creature. After trying unsuccessfully to grab it using suction, they eventually were able to do so with forceps.

The hospital even recorded video of the removal, for those brave enough to watch.

According to the Times of India, doctors at Stanley had removed beads, button cells, leeches and chalk from nasal cavities before, but never a cockroach.

Doctors said the woman was lucky the roach was still alive when they removed it, for if it had died, it might have become infected and damaged her brain.

Warning: graphic video