Eye eye!

A hotel guest got an eyeful in the middle of the night when he was delivered a human eyeball. The eyeball had been meant to go to a hospital for a transplant operation, but was wrongly delivered to the hotel.

The guest, at a hotel in Hobart, Tasmania in Australia, was shocked when he received the foam box containing a single human eyeball. Hotel worker Gabriel Winner told the Courier Mail newspaper the agitated guest took the eye to the reception desk.

He told the newspaper: "He got the box and signed for it and opened it in the middle of the night. I thought this is just too weird. I went and put it in the fridge because I didn't know what else to do with it. It was more than a little disconcerting."

The box was marked 'Live human organs for transplant' was delivered by mistake by an unwitting taxi driver. An Australian Air Express spokeswoman confirmed a "failure in an internal handover process" which meant the taxi driver was given the wrong package to deliver.

A health spokeswoman said despute the incident the tissue from the eye was recovered and successfully used in an operation.