Friend loses small toe

[dooooood]

ouch, glad to hear it was only his baby toe. could have been alot worse huh. those jellyfish are bastards too, i wish him well.

[DrLightWind]

I had a bad experience with them.
15 years ago one of these Portuguese man-of-war's tentacles rapped oround my leg,
when I missed a jibe while windsurfing 1 mile from the shore.
The lifeguard washed it off with winegar but it was too late.
I almost passed out and had a cold shiver for 2hrs and they wanted to call the ambulance.
On the picture below I took about a year ago at our spot after a srtong cold front,
blowing them in to the bay from the sargosa sea.
Use wetsuit when you see them!

DrLightWind

[gipseysurfer]

it sukks to lose any part of your anotomy kiting.
i wish the kiter that lost his small toe a speedy recovery.

the guy that lost his finger was kiting in the early days of the sport and had his bar set up without leader lines. let this be a warning to newbies buying older equipment to get started, make sure your bar has a good set of leaders this would probably have saved the finger of the kiter in question. leaders also float better and are more visible than the flying lines.
the line got twisted around his pinky when trying to relaunch. the kite powered up and the line basically took all the skin off the pinky finger.

at the hospital he was advised to have whatever remained amputated.
last time i saw him he was about to turn 75 and he's still kiting minus his pinky.

inspiration to all.

barry

[jeffjkkraemer]

I have a minor in marine bio and a extremely severe sting by a man-o-war can kill someone. so better a toe than to die. jellys of all sorts can be as dangerous as a kite if you fall on them. its a different kind of pain, but your friend is lucky that a, he didnt' get stung badly, and b. he didn't get the lines around his neck. sorrry.

[phree]

Wow... Anyone else hear of this sort of thing happening before?!

[MrBonk]

I have a minor in marine bio and a extremely severe sting by a man-o-war can kill someone.

In theory yes, or are you saying there are documented cases of fatalities resulting from Blue-bottle sting??

I know there aren't any in either Australia or New Zealand, but the ones we see here are pretty small by comparison to how big they can actually get.

[heychris]

yeah this is toxic australia. At the moment lots of blue bottles and similar around here in southeast queensland.

Last big session in the water you could spot them everywhere ( not all bbottles but nevertheless big and blue!) , which looks nice in our crystal clear waters combined with some
interestingly shaped stingrays and other large shadows !!!

so i posponed my new trick training session and just cruised !

but still a wave took the board off my feet and I had to drag to it. As soon as I was back up I saw 3 big motherfuckers just jellying in on me !

anyway winds up...

[tweekster]

I have a minor in marine bio and a extremely severe sting by a man-o-war can kill someone.

In theory yes, or are you saying there are documented cases of fatalities resulting from Blue-bottle sting??

I know there aren't any in either Australia or New Zealand, but the ones we see here are pretty small by comparison to how big they can actually get.

i have ended up in the emergency room on more than one occasion from box jellyfish stings. over years of getting little stings i have grown allergic to the venom. the little man o'wars that we get in hawaii will do the lymph node thing that you mentioned to me as well. i think the toxin isn't as strong as the box jellyfish.

i carry meat tenderizer in the glove compartment of my truck. the paprin (derived from papayas) is supposed to neutralize the toxins...won't do anything to save your toe, though, if it gets caught in your lines.

[RickI]

I have a minor in marine bio and a extremely severe sting by a man-o-war can kill someone.

If you live in latitudes frequented by Portuguese man-of-war, being hit by them can be fairly common. I have been hit many many times, more than I can count over the decades. By far most have been minor.

One of the more memorable ones include something that happened to a friend in high school. We were free diving, swimming along underwater when he picked up some tentacles across his upper lip while about 7 ft. below the surface. Man he moved fast, towing the portuguese man-of-war lip first, the nemantocysts can anchor the tentacles to you.

There have been fatalites as a result of Portuguese man-of-war hits. One is briefly described in Hawaii in the following writeup. The article contains a GREAT deal of info on Portuguese man-of-war including first aid.

http://www.aloha.com/~lifeguards/portugue.html

The following is out of Oz and considers jellyfish envenomation fatalities world wide.

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/dec ... enner.html

In short, yes there have been Portuguese man-of-war, Physalia sp. related fatalities. They never talked about it in my Marine Bio. program but I seem to recall some early Navy fatality(ies?) involving very large Physalia and massive dosing on the heart area from my first diving course.

So, in short Portuguese man-o-war impacts are common in parts of the world. Fatalities exist but seem to be fairly rare. Kite line amputated toes appear to be even more rare. This is the first one that I have heard about althought there may have been others.

[PsYLoR]

Yeah ive also been stung that many times, (probably 50+) by bluebottles i hardly get affected by them anymore. The first times as a young kid where bad enough, Ive had them wrapped around my stomach and hands, feet from surfing etc. Its worse when they get wrapped around you and you have to actually remove them. Sometimes they just brush past you and dont get attached to you which is good. These days i only seem to get a small irritable pain which goes away faster if i just keep riding. Or a quick spray of 'stingoes' will dull the pain.
I guess your body becomes used to the sting, though the ones we get hear are probably only of medium size. Oh i guess it also depends where you get stung, obviously sensative areas hurt more.