Ever get stung?

[3-Ring Octopus]

How have I been bitten by so many different fish? Well...most species of moray have a really hard time discerning squid/shrimp from finger when you're feeding them at home. A lot of triggers are mean creatures by nature (esp. Queen Triggers, Undulate triggers, and the odd Assassi Trigger...I've heard Titans are the worst, but have yet to get a chunk taken out of me by one.). Several puffer species will bite at anything that comes close to the water and looks like it might or might not taste interesting. (Had a Stars and Stripes that ate more nori than most of the herbivourous fishes...unfortunately, he also had a taste for electrical cords...) And the larger wrasses (Maori wrasses, several of the paddlefin and bird wrasses, and lets not even get into the slingjaws...) will, again, hit anything that comes close to the water.

That's just the worst of them...we won't even get into the number of times clownfish have attacked me for coming anywhere near their anemones or damsels attacking when you get near their coral heads.

Oh..and Dungeness crab pincers can hurt even through 5mm neoprene gloves!

Cheers,
Austin

 

[knotical]

I’m a very hands-off-the-critters diver, and feel fortunate that I’ve only been painfully stung twice, and had a few other mild experiences.

The first bad one was in Seychelles, while wading out of the water after a snorkel. I was in thigh-deep water when I felt an awful sting on my thigh. Instinctively I slapped it, and then felt the sting on my hand, so still without thinking I started rubbing it with my other hand. Excruciating! A degree of sanity returned and I realized it was some kind of marine sting. I submerged and grabbed some sand to rub on the affected areas. I also looked around and saw a very pretty float sack a few feet away. Portuguese Man-of-War (Physalia physalis). I made my way to shore before collapsing, perhaps from mild shock. In five minutes I was up again, and in a half-hour the worst of the pain was gone. By the next day, only redness.

The other time was while surfacing after a night dive in Cayman Brac. We’d been warned about the Sea Wasps (Carybdea alata), one of the milder box jellies, but I didn’t start discharging air from my alternate deep enough, and got zapped between my regulator and my mask. Felt like a normal bee sting. The divemaster put some sting stop on it about 15 minutes later. I couldn’t tell if that made any difference. The next day it looked like I’d had collagen injections on my upper lip.

In surge, I once accidentally punched a spiny sea urchin (perhaps Echinothrix diadema). Only very mild pain. I had gloves on, and just brushed off the spines and continued the dive. Afterwards I had a half-dozen dots in my fingers that took months to disappear.

And of course, I’ve experienced “sea lice”.

To me, the messages of this thread and the subject in general are:
- There are a lot of different critters that can hurt us, but fortunately, incidents aren’t all that common, and usually not very severe.
- Different people react differently to the toxins.
- Identifying what zapped us can be difficult.

 

[ScubaMike14]

Hey all....it's been quite a while since I last posted, I recently got an e-mail from a member expressing concern about my health.

I recovered from my incident and ironically came back to the states for a non-related medical problem. Got an infection in my knee from a splinter that I picked up on a wooden dock. It went from a simple splinter, to my knee growing to the size of a softball in about a week. Nothing the physicians on the island had in the way of antibiotics would work, and I was eventually air-evac'd home where I had surgery on the knee that night. Then another week in the hospital on IV antibiotics (lots of fun for the GI system) and I was all better. The infection almost cost me my leg.

I am not actively diving right now as my wife and I are living in Missouri (USA) courtesy of the US military. I hope to be back in the water somewhere this summer.

Take care, dive safe.

 

[DiverBeth]

A few weeks ago when I was in Cozumel about to do my safety dive on a night dive I was stung on a finger by something. Luckily it wasn't too bad like a bee sting. When I got on the boat I had a red line across the finger and some swelling. Hurt a little for a day and then the swelling went away. I had put some vinegar on it on the boat and most of the pain went away.

 

[YellowF4]

On a wall dive in Cozumel several years back there was a lady that got stung by a jelly on her leg. The dive master told her husband (No joke here ladies and gentlemen) to pee on the wound. She screamed and yelled at the thought until she swore she was on fire. As directed, the husband did so and she actually got some relief. The ammonia helped a lot, but she still sought out hospital care when we arrived at the dock. Moral of the story? Don't piss off the wife on a dive trip, piss on her! It'll help! Really.

 

[grassyknoll]

I have been stung by the dreaded Man-O-War twice, both times it happened at the same beach in Maui (K3), and the incidents were 5 years apart. It felt like someone running a razor blade up and down my leg, I had a nice line of blisters and redness all along where it made contact. The pain was exruciating but subsided after about 30 minutes. Funny thing is both times I was stung while snorkeling, I've yet to have any bites/stings/scratches or other marine related injuries while diving.

 

[2ndjetty]

I've never had bad stings, but swam through a group of tiny tiny jellies on a night dive off baja. Lots of little stings that didn't hurt much - it was pretty weird actually.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Body surfing in Tokyo Bay, something dragged itself across my chest, from my right shoulder to my left hip. It was an itchy sort of pain and it looked like I'd been scraped with a piece of sandpaper, or something. A couple of days of the itchy-scratchies and it healed with no complications.

 

[Lessthanlethal]

Okay Im new to all this (only 3 dives total). What is a sea wasp?? and where do they live? I live in florida. I want to touch and pet everything i see but I dont want to hurt anything eather. I saw a seahorse last weekend and wanted to touch it but I dont know whats bad to touch...

 

[Lessthanlethal]

sea lice what is that???