Reptiles fill hospital beds

Rats, lawnmowers and reptiles are today revealed as among the peculiar and painful reasons people end up in hospital.

Almost one million admissions each year are due to bizarre accidents.

Other ways in which Britons are consigned to a hospital bed include "accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed" and contact with pesticides.

The cost to the National Health Service of such accidents is believed to be about £1billion a year.

Details of the causes of every hospital admission have been released by the Department of Health. They show that last year 51 people were bitten or crushed by reptiles, 22 were bitten by a rat and 190 had to spend time in a hospital bed after "coming into contact with plant thorns, spines and sharp leaves".

A further 369 people were involved in incidents with lawnmowers, while 3,038 were injured as a result of "contact with a non-powered hand-drill".

The definitions for admission have been devised by the World Health Organisation.

Intriguingly, the statistics show that a man and a woman spent seven days in hospital between them after a "prolonged stay in a weightless environment".