Top 5 bizarre x-rays

The five strangest things swallowed by man, woman and animal

Dog eats Homer

D'oh! This figurine of Homer Simpson was inside a chocolate egg eaten by ten-year-old Dixie, a Dalmatian collie living in Aberdeen. Mmmmmmm, edible Homer.

Ring-swallowing thief put on toilet watch

One lovelorn man who tried to steal a £1,750 engagement ring by swallowing it was caught after police ran a metal detector over his stomach, x-rayed him, and eventually proved their case by mounting a three-day vigil outside his cell while nature took its course and the ring 'emerged'.

Drunk student swallows house key in order to carry on partying

Hungover Chris Foster, 18, had no memory of swallowing this 5cm key in a drunken bid to avoid being taken home – until his friends and the NHS helped him piece together the events of the night before.

Face impaled with tap after slip in bath

These amazing X-rays show how a man arrived with a tap and 16 inches of pipework stuck in his eye at a hospital's casualty unit, after slipping in the bath. But the terrified patient was forced to pull the tap out himself - because surgeons took three hours to send for a plumber to get it out...

How did that hairspray get there?

It's a medical mystery that surgeons never got to the bottom of - how a woman patient ended up with a can of hairspray up her backside. Still, the x-rays were very amusing.

AND AS A BONUS... If that's not enough x-ray action for you, check out this gallery of x-rays of the strangest things animals have swallowed -

In this picture, the rubber duck swallowed by a dog is helpfully circled, in case you couldn't spot it.

Another view of the rubber duck - including how the duck looked when it was finally extracted from the dog's body.

This pooch somehow managed to swallow a star-shaped Christmas ornament. That must have hurt.

No, that ten-inch tent peg is not some sort of delicious treat. It's a ten-inch tent peg. Do not eat.

And just for a bit of variety, here's a cat that swallowed a bell. Ding-a-ling.

So the next time you put something unusual near your mouth - or any other orifice, for that matter - just be careful... or you could end up on a list like this.