A woman was left fearing for her life after a terrifying encounter with a venomous sting ray on a Florida beach.
Kristie O’Brien thought she was going to die when she was suddenly impaled by a sting ray in a shocking incident at Bahia Beach.
She tried to stay calm when the creature encountered her, but couldn’t help but think about Steve Irwin, the late crocodile hunter who tragically died back in 2006 after he was stung by a stingray in 2006.
O’Brien told FOX 13: “I was trying to stay as calm as I could.
‘But I was certain that I was going to die because, I mean like everyone has like this picture of Steve Irwin when he literally was punctured in his chest.”
O’Brien was kept in hospital three days after the traumatizing incident unfolded.
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She received a stab wound that dug more than four inches deep in her back from a Southern stingray while she was leaning in knee-deep water.
The animal reportedly missed her lung by a matter of centimetres, meaning she was just inches away from receiving a serious injury.
O’Brien said: “As soon as I hit the water, I felt like I had been stung by something.”
Her husband was reportedly the first to notice that a stingray was attached to her. But O’Brien said she knew that she was not supposed to pull the stingray barb out herself.
Paramedics raced to the scene to cut the stingray at the bottom of its tail in an excruciating procedure at the beach.
Its spine was later removed after she arrived at the hospital.
O’Brien remains in hospital and is being treated for poisoning from the stingray’s nasty venom.
She said: “It’s like spurts of pain. And they say that’s just because of the toxin that’s actually in the barb of the stingray itself.”
Wildlife officials say beachgoers should practice the “Stingray Shuffle” if they believe they are in danger of being stung by the animal.
This is when you move your feet along the sea floor to send vibrations that scares away stingrays.
According to the National Capital Poison Center, there are “11 species of stingrays found in the coastal waters of the US. “
It adds: “Their flat bodies and grey colour allow them to be camouflaged on the sea floor, where they move slowly to forage for their prey (small fish and crustaceans like crabs and sea snails).
“Interestingly, a stingray cannot see its prey because its eyes are on the upper side of its body, while its mouth and nostrils are on the underside.”
