Brazilian woman's sour start to 2016 after fish gets embedded in her thigh

A young Brazilian woman was forced to ring in the new year in agony after a small fish bit her on the thigh and refused to let go.

The woman was happily farewelling 2015 at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro with friends by leaping over the waves when she felt something grab the back of her leg.

After running out of the water, she screamed for her friends’ help to remove the fish.

"She realised that a small fish got stuck in her leg," her friend, Andrew Barao, who uploaded the video to LiveLeak, wrote.

In rather gruesome video of the beachside procedure, a man attempts to carefully pull the tiny fish from the flesh of the woman’s thigh.

After several agonising minutes, the tiny creature is finally removed as the young woman’s friends create a makeshift bandage to stem the blood left from the bite.