Crocodile Hunter killed

[Aggie87]

I'm heading to Hawaii in a few weeks. Is there anything I need to worry about if i encounter a nene?

I would step back slowly, so as not to disturb Nene. I wouldn't want one mad at me.

[RDK]

I'm heading to Hawaii in a few weeks. Is there anything I need to worry about if i encounter a nene?

What's a nene?

If you mean stingray, I'd just surrender all the crustaceans and shellfish you may be carrying and let him have them.

Damn, I wish i had Chuck's skill with smilies...

[Chalupa]

De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

[Chalupa]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/1...s.ap/index.html

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/1...s.ap/index.html

Good grief!

MG

[Chalupa]

Well I knew it wouldn't take long for the stingray video to hit the internet....

Don't look at this at work. Really horrific.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=19...2steve+irwin%22

Edited September 28, 2006 by Chalupa

[Aggie87]

Man in critical condition after stingray attack in boat

LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Florida (AP) -- An 81-year-old man was in critical condition Thursday after a stingray flopped onto his boat and stung him, leaving a foot-long barb in his chest in an accident similar to the one that killed "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin.

"It was a freak accident," said Lighthouse Point acting fire Chief David Donzella. "It's very odd that the thing jumped out of the water and stung him. We still can't believe it."

Fatal stingray attacks like the one that killed Irwin last month at the Great Barrier Reef are rare, marine experts say. Rays reflexively deploy a sharp spine in their tails when frightened, but the venom coating the barb usually causes just a painful sting for humans.

James Bertakis of Lighthouse Point was on the water with his granddaughter and a friend Wednesday when a stingray flopped onto the boat and stung Bertakis. The women steered the boat to shore and called 911.

Doctors were able to remove the barb during surgeries Wednesday and Thursday by eventually pulling it through his heart and closing the wound, said Dr. Eugene Costantini at Broward General Medical Center.

He said Bertakis' case was different from Irwin's because the barb stayed in Bertakis' heart and was not pulled out. Videotape of Irwin's last moments shows him pulling the barb from his chest.

Bertakis was apparently trying to remove the three-foot-wide spotted eagle ray from the boat when he was stung, police Cmdr. Mike Oh said.

Ellen Pikitch, a professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami, who has been studying stingrays for decades, said they are generally docile.

"Something like this is really, really extraordinarily rare," she said. "Even when they are under duress, they don't usually attack."

[sidewinder]

The rays must have turned on mankind !

Incidentally, in the past I have often swum on scuba dives over very sedentary sting rays, without any hassle from them whatsoever. They usually like to camouflage themselves in the sand and hide away and often only their faint impression in the sand gives them away.

I once saw an idiot diver get zapped by an electric ray however. Served him right..

Edited October 19, 2006 by sidewinder

[Aggie87]

I didn't know there were electric rays (like electric eels)...that's kind of unnerving. Did you actually see a "zap"? Or just see the other diver's reaction?

[sidewinder]

I didn't know there were electric rays (like electric eels)...that's kind of unnerving. Did you actually see a "zap"? Or just see the other diver's reaction?

It was in the Med, off the North Coast of Sardinia. Just saw the reaction of the diver when he put his hand on it (looked like a mini epileptic fit - no 'zap' visible from the ray). Painfull but not too dangerous. Before the dive he was mouthing off about how great a diver he was - this shut him up.

The real 'nasty' though is the stone fish, which you get in the Red Sea. Stand on one of those and you can be dead within 30 minutes from herat failure.

Incidentally, the electric ray is not that big - sort of like a small 'squarish' sting ray and with a speckled pattern on its back. Quite distinctive.

As for stingrays, we sometimes get them off the UK coast and they seem to be prolific in the warm water at the outlets of nuclear power stations on the SE coast !

Edited October 19, 2006 by sidewinder

[clifford_thornton]

The real 'nasty' though is the stone fish, which you get in the Red Sea. Stand on one of those and you can be dead within 30 minutes from herat failure.

Yeah, I've read about those things. Heavy shit.

But where's the "herat?"

[rockefeller center]

The real 'nasty' though is the stone fish, which you get in the Red Sea. Stand on one of those and you can be dead within 30 minutes from herat failure.

Yeah, I've read about those things. Heavy shit.

But where's the "herat?"

Very close to the heart.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

That Candirú fish down in the Amazon scares the pee outta me!

ouch!

[clifford_thornton]

Yikes!

[sidewinder]

But where's the "herat?"

Woops. Typing too fast !

[sidewinder]

scares the pee outta me!

Literally !

[clifford_thornton]

scares the pee outta me!

Literally !

No! That appears to be where the problems START!