Notable stings, shocks, bites, and otherwise memorable injuries in the hobby

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Back in the mid-80s I was cleaning the glass on my 12-14" Volitan lionfish by hand (this was long before they invented magfloat cleaners) and a fish jumped and knocked my lid off another tank on the other side of the room. I had shooed the lionfish away with a net, but when I turned to look at the other tank to see if a fish was carpetsurfing, the lionfish swam back looking for food cause I used to handfeed it every day. Well on the downstroke, two dorsal spines went straight into my middle finger on my right hand. Before I could finish the thought "This is going to hurt!", it HURT like hell.

Went to the hospital but they took forever and so I came home. Called up poison control and they told me to put my arm under the hottest water I could stand. Well by this time I was yelling at my brother to cut off my arm cause I could feel the poison going up to the shoulder and towards my vital organs. He ran away, hehehe. Good thing too or else I'd be called Lefty now.

Well I poured almost boiling hot water all over my arm, burnt it like crazy and had blisters and 'scorch" marks all over, but the heat broke up the toxin in time. This sting was by far the worst pain I've ever felt.

If I ever had to make a terrorist or kidnapper talk right away, I'd use a big Volitan lionfish as my torture tool of choice, that's how bad it was.

Sold the Volitan the next day.

Anthony

[Misses.ReefWars]

First experience with long spined sea urchin....not so good...didnt realize how sharp and firm the spines were and got stabbed a few times, my hand was on fire ooouch :s
ps. I blame reefwars for not warning me....lol

[Snappy]

Originally Posted by Reef_Geek

My most recent was a brush against some fire coral in Cozumel, scuba diving through some swim-throughs in December.
...

I had the same experience there in November - still have some scars on my knee. I thought I knocked that coral out of harms way.

[smokinreefer]

having my bamboo shark hanging onto my finger with his mouth.

having my stingray hanging onto my finger with his mouth.

having my snapper bite my finger.

luckily my mantis shrimp never took a swing at me.

anybody ever have that happen?

[Dearth]

First and worst injury to date when I was new to hobby had something either from Zoa coral or rock it was attached to inject something into my system and paralyzed my left hand and arm for roughly 6 hrs the pain was intense and unbearable at times really really wanted to cut my arm off at times

[Reef_Geek]

Sorry to hear it was so rough. This topic of zoa toxins is incredibly fascinating... it's such a common coral in the hobby, yet very few people have the misfortunate of getting it into their bloodstream system or into their mouth/eyes. But when it happens, it sounds absolutely awful.

Had a quick web browse... the section under 'Dangers' on wiki here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoantharia

a TFH article here:
http://www.tfhmagazine.com/details/a...thid-toxin.htm

The original scientific research paper cited by the TFH article:

Moore, R.E. and P.J. Scheuer. 1971. Palytoxin: A New Marine Toxin from a Coelenterate. Science: 172 (3982), 495-498.

http://www.ufpe.br/gpa/images/docume...palitoxina.pdf

[MMAX]

I actually had some orange branching monti sting me the other day. One of my fish broke off a good sized piece, so I grabbed it out to frag it. It was obviously ****ed off and after cutting and gluing, my finger tips on my right hand were all tingly. Didn't hurt or anything, just washed my hand and all was good.