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

[monocus]

urchin spine in the finger-took a week to get that out.bit by a dragon wrasse while emptying my tank on a move-more of a shock than anything as i didn't see it

[Chaloupa]

Foxface....good lord did that hurt...I'm not usually one to cry, but this one hit me in the knuckle and I did cry like a girl (I am a girl so it's ok) one of the nastiest feelings ever...ran hot water over it until the hot water tank was drained and still was excruciating!!! I don't recommend it...teach me to get too comfy with the tank! 48 hours later and the pain was finally gone...

My husband was dealing with a very large blue carpet anemone...touched a tiny part of it and the thing glommed onto his arm and stung him...very raw and painful but I still think my was WAY worse!

[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

[christyf5]

bad run in with some really fugly zoanthids that weren't interested in coming off the rock. squirted me in the eye and got me in every hang nail. My fingers were so swollen I couldn't flex them for 3 days and my eye was just disgusting for awhile too. Gloves and goggles required when working with those little buggers.

[Reef_Geek]

Originally Posted by christyf5

bad run in with some really fugly zoanthids that weren't interested in coming off the rock. squirted me in the eye and got me in every hang nail. My fingers were so swollen I couldn't flex them for 3 days and my eye was just disgusting for awhile too. Gloves and goggles required when working with those little buggers.

That's amazing. A co-worker who is a newbie reefer told me he got squirted in the eye by something like a zoa when trying to frag it. He told me this long list of symptoms he was experiencing... from sinus congestion, poor hearing, the shakes, to (of course) eye issues. I never heard of zoas being this toxic before, but then again, not too many people get it right in the eye. This is the first re-confirming example I've heard since then.

There you go, as they say, wear your PPE always.

[ScubaSteve]

In my tank I've certainly had the all-too-regular run ins with bristle worms and have had my share of anemone stings. Of all the tank-induced injuries, my buddy's maroon goldstripe clown was the worst. That fish was a d-bag in every sense of the word. The damn thing would find the softest part of the fingers and bite on hard enough I could lift it out of the water and hold it there as it dangled from my tender flesh.

Outside of the tank, however, I've had some rough run-ins with wildlife. I've had:

- Lionfish spines (which hurt like **** as noted previously)
- Got tangled in a 4ft wide lions mane jellyfish while freediving. I still have scars from this encounter.
- Countless other jelly stings, typically on the face and typically quite mean.
- Spines from numerous urchins stuck in all appendages
- Countless wounds from crabs (I was helping my friend with his PhD in marine biology and was assisting him in crab counts *Note: Crabs don't like being picked up and measured).
- 2" gash in my hand from wrestling a 3ft tanner crab (which was the best earned crab BBQ I've ever had)
- Nipped fingers from an over-friendly wolf eel
- Sliced fingers from a prawn's rostrum

And the list goes on...

[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