Turtle girl baffles doctors

A girl dubbed the human turtle has baffled medics with an amazing series of tumours linking up across her body.

The tumours - made of massively swollen blood or lymph vessels - give 23-year-old Tian Yunting the appearance of a hard scaly skin.

But in fact, her rare medical condition means that even the slightest knock or jolt could burst the swollen vessels and she would bleed to death.



Tian has even had to give up college because the bus journey over bumpy unmade roads could have killed her. "Even when I got there I couldn't sit down because the hard chairs might burst me," she explained.

Doctors in Zhangjiajie, southern China, say the condition is caused by a rare genetic deficiency called angiomas - but have never seen it on such a large scale.

"It can be controlled by regular removal of the tumours but that has to be done in hospital because there will be a lot of bleeding. This is the worst case we've ever seen," said one surgeon.