Cornwall woman saves life of pet goldfish

A woman from Cornwall who saved her goldfish's life has claimed she did it by performing abdominal thrusts.

Kharis Harvey, from Looe, noticed that her goldfish was upside down in the corner of its tank and not moving.

It turned out that Gilly, the 10-year-old fish, had swallowed a large pebble which then became lodged in her mouth.

Ms Harvey said: "It struck me as strange as she is normally very mobile, so I opened the lid of the tank and reached in and turned her over so I could see her face, and that's when I saw a large stone in her mouth."

That's when she decided to use abdominal thrusts, (formerly known as the Heimlich manoeuvre) to try and save Gilly's life.

Thankfully Gilly responded well to Kharis' life-saving techniques.

Kharis said despite being "very upset", she was glad to see Gilly swimming around in her tank again immediately after.

Thankfully the fish now appears to be back to normal.

Ms Harvey has put extra precautions in place to make sure this doesn't happen to her 10-year-old pet again. She has now taken all of the large pebbles out of the tank.

She said: "I cannot understand how or why she would have swallowed a larger stone on this occasion, but I'm glad that I was there to help her. I had no idea what I was doing but I just followed my instinct and hopefully it worked ok."

"I'm so glad that she's safe as I'm still saving to get her a bigger tank. I hope that we have many more years together."