Heh, I remember my encounters with leeches... The strangest was while I was soaking a broken hand in a mill pond.. and a small (almost tiny) leech attached itself to me. Aaaaahhhh! *shake , shake, shake shake, shake!* Not a good idea when you have a broken hand. Then it struck me that a leech attaching itself to a swelling hand might nt be such a bad thing... Sure enough after the leech reattached itself the swelling started going down almost immediately.
The Auld Grump
*Edit* Small in this case means about an inch and a half long.