Stung by saltwater ray!!!

jim barry

Goliath Tigerfish
MFK Member
Jun 21, 2006
2,979
1,119
179
U.K
Hi all
Just got back from holiday in the Dominican Republic yesterday. Turned out to be one of the scariest times of our lives!
Me and my family paid to go on an excursion to Saona island which is on the Caribean side of the Dominican. A beautiful island paradise. We were waist high in water after having lunch on the beach. My son (17 years old) suddenly shouted at me 'Dad, STINGRAY!!!'. I was around 10 foot or so away from him. When i looked he was stood with his left leg above the water and holding onto the tail of a ray. The tail was about 3 feet long and 1 meter disc. The ray was thrashing around in the water and was trying to get away and my son was trying to pull the ray's barb from just above his calf muscle. I raced over to him and between us we pulled the ray and it's barb away from my sons leg. I am amazed cosidering the size of the ray that it could not shake itself loose. I guess this shows how deep the barb must have gone into the leg! My son received cuts to the palm of his hand i got away with just a small cut to my finger from the barb.The damage was done. Blood everywhere and my son in agony. We got him to the shore and others raced to help. Saona island is a very secluded place. Being a ray owner i knew we needed very hot water but there was none available. We got our son into a speed boat and we had a VERY fast ride back to the mainland which took about 20 minutes. Throughout the ride back my son was paralysed and in agony. I was holding his leg to stop the bleeding and a local in the boat was spraying antiseptic spray on it every few minutes whilst my son crushed the hands of two people he was holding on to! We then lifted him into the back of a locals van and raced him to a tin shack where he was treated. Could not understand what the people were saying as my Spanish is poor! I assume they gave him a shot of addrenelin followed by a shot of anesthetic in his leg plus 5 stitches to the wound. He spent the next 9 days in a wheel chair unable to walk and shooting pains down his leg with numbness and swelling to his foot. He was put on penecillin and diclofenec for the swelling. 7 days later the stitches were taken out but still unable to walk due to the pain and swelling. We were then sent to a local hospital where a so called specialist took one look and told us the leg needed to be opened up and be drained to reduce the swelling. We were aware that the local hospital was trying to scare us into staying and receiving the treatment in an effort to get money from us. I refused to leave my son in the hospital as we were due to fly home the next day and we would miss our flight. We got more medicine and got him on the flight home to the U.K and i took him straight to hospital. He was given the okay, wound redressed and more medication plus checked over by a plastic surgeon in case he needs any follow up treatment. He is still unable to walk and we need to go back for a check up next week, but he was not kept in hospital and his leg was not cut open to be drained! If the Dominican hospital had their way we would still be there now and my son would have received unessecary treatment at a huge cost. As it was it cost 500 dollars just to change the dressing that day!
All in all a VERY scary experience. I am extremely proud of my son for being so brave and consider myself very fortunate for being a keeper and lover of rays and for passing this knowledge onto my son and family as it certainly helped us to understand what was going on following the accident. Heres to a full recovery Josh!!
 

doomiedee

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Nov 13, 2011
5,429
2
62
Waterbury
Wow that's crazy. I hope he makes a fast full recovery.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 

doyboy

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jul 12, 2010
426
1
18
essex uk
:eek: oh jim you all must of been frightened stiff, thankfully being a ray keeper you knew abit about wot to do. Hope your son makes full and speedy recovery. Amazing how quick a situation can go from being a luvly family experience to the day from hell within seconds, nightmare.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 

dxdx

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 26, 2010
1,111
4
68
NJ, USA
I'm sorry to hear about that, I hope he makes a full recovery. Sounds like a parent's worst nightmare, seeing your son like that, but at least you have experience and knew not to panic.
 

stingray keeper

Dovii
MFK Member
Jan 4, 2013
1,116
402
107
Canada
Wow what an experience. Wish your son the best in his recovery. What a coincidence id say.... Being a ray keeper and your son getting stung by a ray while away on vaca. Good thing you knew the procedure.
 
zoomed.com
hikariusa.com
aqaimports.com
Store