Moray Eel Attack

[minnesota01r6]

The following medical case report discusses an attack by a moray eel on a diver at 30m (100 feet) - the basics of the story are this: Dive group was briefed that they would possibly see a moray eel on their dive. It is unclear if the dive group or previous dive groups fed the eel, but the eel apparently associated divers with food. The eel came out, circled the divers, and then clamped down on the diver's right arm. He could not get the attention of other divers, so he inflated his BC and made an uncontrolled ascent. The eel apparently let go somewhere around 50 feet, diver was taken to the hospital and had surgery. No mention of effects of uncontrolled ascent from 100 feet.

You can read the full story here: (possibly NSFW pictures of arm during surgery)
http://www.wemjournal.org/wmsonline...&issn=1080-6032&volume=015&issue=03&page=0194

My questions and comments:
1) and uncontrolled ascent from 100 ft?? that has to be more life-threatening than an eel bite
2) Aside from not supporting an unhealthy population of marine life, this is probably the best argument for not feeding creatures while scuba diving.
3) what would you have done in the same situation?

 

[Dave Zimmerly]

Taken my dive knife out of its sheath and proceed to stab the little sucker till he let go.

Dave (aka "Squirt")

 

[cerich]

The following medical case report discusses an attack by a moray eel on a diver at 30m (100 feet) - the basics of the story are this: Dive group was briefed that they would possibly see a moray eel on their dive. It is unclear if the dive group or previous dive groups fed the eel, but the eel apparently associated divers with food. The eel came out, circled the divers, and then clamped down on the diver's right arm. He could not get the attention of other divers, so he inflated his BC and made an uncontrolled ascent. The eel apparently let go somewhere around 50 feet, diver was taken to the hospital and had surgery. No mention of effects of uncontrolled ascent from 100 feet.

You can read the full story here: (possibly NSFW pictures of arm during surgery)
http://www.wemjournal.org/wmsonline...&issn=1080-6032&volume=015&issue=03&page=0194

My questions and comments:
1) and uncontrolled ascent from 100 ft?? that has to be more life-threatening than an eel bite

Not if they didn't hold their breath and they weren't at 100 for very long
2) Aside from not supporting an unhealthy population of marine life, this is probably the best argument for not feeding creatures while scuba diving.
That and the nerve damage one of my old instructor students got from a Moray bite. Yes that moray was fed! I voted for killing the eel, other(more eco friendly than I) decided to capture and move it a few miles, it came back and bit another instructor....
3) what would you have done in the same situation?

Yelled, cursed and then try to kill the eel, controlled bleeding, put liberal amounts of peroxide on it and seen a doctor. If I wasn't able to kill it then I would return after healing was complete. If the eel was in a protected zone I would be very careful not to get caught

 

[Ironhed]

I know someone that had an eel take in his entire forearm although he was in pain he sawed it's head off and made a controlled ascent to the boat to remove its head. i was not on the dive but the story was pretty insane and everyone on the boat was a little woozy after seeing the carnage.

 

[james croft]

What Dave said. That's why I carry a big Mike Nelson slasher. Do you know how silly you look trying to use scissors or a broken steak knife when in a life and death struggle with the deadly moray. Opportunities like this happen rarely. Make the most of it. Save the remains and get them to a taxidermist. "There I was at a hunded feet...

 

[*Floater*]

Taken my dive knife out of its sheath and proceed to stab the little sucker till he let go.

Dave (aka "Squirt")

Little suckers, lol. I think the giant ones can grow pretty big, probably over 10 feet long and over 150 lbs? Anyone know the biggest one they found?

 

[DennisW]

The pics from the article were very interesting to say the least. The eel nearly severed the persons arm. It's hard to say what I would do with a large eel sawing my arm off. I would hope that I would do something to injure the eel's gills hoping it would let go, then make a controlled ascent. Although with that kind of injury, you could bleed out before you got to the surface. Scary.

 

[Dave Zimmerly]

Hey Dennis, how about posting article and pics of said attack?

Dave (aka "Squirt")

 

[cerich]

The pics from the article were very interesting to say the least. The eel nearly severed the persons arm. It's hard to say what I would do with a large eel sawing my arm off. I would hope that I would do something to injure the eel's gills hoping it would let go, then make a controlled ascent. Although with that kind of injury, you could bleed out before you got to the surface. Scary.

The bad picture was during the operation, it probably didn't look that bad before they began. They need to clean it out and dig for any viens/arteries./igaments/muscles that got severed and that can make a mess...

 

[Diver Dennis]

Yeah, we don't feed them much any more, at least in areas there are a lot of divers. I think it is pretty rare to have them bite a diver but I've seen them swim up between divers legs up to their face and scare the S*** out of them. This is a link to a video of me feeding a big girl who knows us. I like to give her a little treat once in a while. She is not in an area that normally sees divers, the young fellow with me is a Marine Biology student who wanted to see some interaction with a big eel. Just before this video was taken, I was petting her and she has never shown signs of aggression towards me. Watch when she grabs the fish, she will just grab the tip of the head. She could grab the whole thing right up to my hand with her big mouth but she is always quite careful.
Obviously this is not something that should be tried at home...I've been doing this for a while. The video is shot with a little Canon S70 camera so the quality is not the best and it is compressed as well but you'll get the idea. It is the middle video.

http://www.dropshots.com/DiverDennis