Australian doctors pull inch-long cockroach from man's ear I was hoping it was not a poisonous spider... I was hoping it didn't bite me," he said, adding that as the pain got worse he tried to suck the insect out with a vacuum cleaner before squirting water in his ear. This only forced the two centimetre (0.8 inch) roach to crawl in deeper, before it eventually began to die. "Near the 10 minute mark ... somewhere about there, he started to stop burrowing but he was still in the throes of death twitching," said Mr Helmer. At that point the doctor put forceps into his ear and pulled out the cockroach. "She (the doctor) said, 'You know how I said a little cockroach, that may have been an underestimate'," he said. They said they had never pulled an insect this large out of someone's ear. Mr Helmer told ABC he would not be taking any added precautions when sleeping, although friends of his said they were so perturbed by his experience that they had begun going to bed with headphones on.