How Many Doctors Does It Take to Remove a Volleyball From a Dolphin's Stomach?

For American children, losing the baseball at a game can sometimes mean playtime is over (think the classic movie "The Sandlot"). The same was true for one dolphin at an aquarium in China, but it didn't quite lose the ball -- it swallowed it.

According to International Business Times, 5-year-old Jiang Bo at Nanjing Ocean Aquarium was playing with its keeper when the 30 centimeter in diameter ball was punctured and swallowed. The ball was not going to pass naturally, so doctors devised a plan to retrieve the object.

Watch what appears to be an unusual and chaotic operation:

The International Business Times report (in English) depicts a slightly less hectic operating room:

According to the International Business Times, the ball was located with an endoscope before the dolphin was sedated for the 2.5 hour procedure.

Shanghai Daily reports that before using a different technique to get the ball out, doctors considered finding someone with long arms:

"After closely examining the situation, we conclude the safest and quickest solution to help the dolphin out is to find people whose arms are longer than 1.1 meters," she said.

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In 2006, the long arms of the world's tallest man reached in and saved two dolphins by pulling out plastic they had nibbled from the edge of their pool in northeast China's Liaoning Province from their stomachs, The Associated Press reported.

Previous attempts to retrieve the ball, which could not be surgically removed through the stomach, included trying to burn a hole in the ball to hook it out. The doctors ended up drilling a hole in the ball and using a wire to pull it out.

The dolphin is reported to be doing well.