A DIZZY moth nearly forced a woman to pull out of a sponsored walk – after it flew into her ear and got stuck.

Michelle Hounslow, who works in Chester, was due to embark on a 14-mile walk around Halkyn but when she stepped out of her door that morning a small moth, which she believes may have been a caddisfly, flew into her ear.

Michelle, 32, said: “It was a horrible sensation, I could hear it buzzing and moving around inside my head.”

Michelle’s dad, who was planning to do the walk with her, took her to Holywell Community Hospital where they attempted to drain the 1.5cm-long insect out of her ear.

She said: “At that point I think they drowned it and it stopped moving, but they still couldn’t get it out so we went to Glan Clwyd Hospital.

“I saw a specialist and I knew he could see the moth because he muttered ‘cool’. He thought he was going to have to use suction to remove it but eventually he got it out using a long pair of scissor-like clamps.”

Despite her ordeal Michelle decided she still wanted to go ahead with the walk.

“I kept thinking maybe I shouldn’t do it after all, but we had postponed it once already so I decided to go for it,” she said.

Michelle set off just an hour-and-ahalf behind schedule and completed the walk in six hours and 50 minutes, which was quicker than the time it took her to complete it last year.

She has the dead insect in a specimen jar and is planning to keep it as a memento of her day.

Michelle, who works for HBOS in Handbridge, was walking to raise money for the Oliver Newnes Memorial Fund, a charity set up in memory of her colleague’s son who died of a brain abscess last year aged just two-and-a-half.

For more information on the charity or to give a donation visit www. oliver-newnes-fundraising.co.uk.