‘Dead’ goldfish flips into life; doesn’t remember a thing
It looked like Mr Fish had cashed in his chips when his owner awoke to find the 13-year-old goldfish floating belly up in his tank.
In preparation for his fishy final rites, Cambridge school dinner lady Carol Norris scooped up the lifeless pet in a tissue and left it in the bath out of reach of her five cats.
Because the fish actually belonged to her 18-year-old daughter – who won Mr Fish in a plastic bag at a fairground when she five – Norris decided not to give him a traditional goldfish send off by flushing him down the toilet.
Amazingly, when she picked Mr. Fish out of the bath more than seven hours later the fish’s tail flipped in her hand. She immediately rushed him to the kitchen sink and then transferred him to a small bowl, propping the still weak fish upright with a glass.
One week later, Mr. Goldfish has made a full recovery and, if goldfish’s reputations are to be believed, doesn’t remember a thing about his near-death experience.
“I screamed when he flipped in my hand. I was amazed but it was quite spooky – I don’t know if they go into a coma,” said Norris.
“When I get up in the morning I wonder whether he’s still alive but he’s a hard little fish. Apparently they can live up to 50 so he could be around for a while yet.”
Fish expert Mark Lloyd told the Daily Mail it was likely the fish had survived by extracting oxygen from water trapped in the tissue in which he was wrapped. The damp tissue would have lowered his metabolic rate and kept him cool and calm, he said.
“If their gills are wet they can pass oxygen across the membrane of their gills into their bloodstream. Some types of fish can cope out of water for quite long periods. Goldfish are pretty resilient.”
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