Stung By a Stingray While Kiting
Things you should know …
Well… I live. In fact, in the big picture, it was a non-event. After I survived the first 7 hours of sheer agony – and that with the help of intravenous morphine and other anesthetics to manage the pain – things returned to normal quite quickly. 24h after the incident, I was barely limping, and 48h later I was back on the sea kitesurfing.
As many of us foil these days and we need to wade into deep water, the chances we will step on a sting ray hiding in the sand have dramatically increased! Here are a few important facts to know:
- A healthy individual, unless stung multiple times or into a vital organ (Steve Irwin), will survive the venom.
- Put the wound into HOT water, as hot as you can bear, ASAP. Hot water helps to neutralize the venom but mainly provides tremendous relief from the pain.
- Seek medical attention. You will need strong pain killers, antibiotics, and other anti inflammatory meds to prevent infection and necrosis of the tissue.
- Sting Rays are docile. When disturbed, its first instinct is to swim away. When threatened, it can whip its tail with a venomous barbed sting multiple times per second.
- To minimize chances of stepping on one when it is napping buried in the sand, it’s better to shuffle your feet. That way, the ray knows you are there from the vibrations in the sand and it will most likely move away.
My wife and I are presently on the Mayan Riviera in Mexico, about 20km south of Playa del Carmen. We have been visiting this very same resort for the last 10 years. The incident happened 4 days ago.
As I was wading with my foil-board and my kite at 12 o’clock to get into deeper water and start my second session of the day, I must have stepped on a sting ray – but I never saw him. All of sudden, I felt sharp pain on the side of my foot as if I had been stabbed with a knife. It made me scream and I knew it was bad. I got quickly back to the shore, crash-landed my kite, and took my reef boot off to see the damage. The wound was on the outer side of my foot, about halfway between my heel and pinky toe. The laceration was about 1cm long in a shape of an L or a wide open V, and blood was oozing out. I repeatedly squeezed the wound to get as much venom out as I could. I suspected it might have been a ray that stung me.
There seemed to be small pieces of other foreign material coming out of my wound as well, probably the broken barb of the sting or pieces of my own flesh. The life guard on the beach came to assist almost instantly. He sprayed the wound with antiseptic, put a bandage on it, and called for a golf-cart to take me to the resort clinic. It was only about 15min since I got stung but I was in such pain, I could barely walk. By the time we got to the clinic, I felt strong tingling in my toes as if an electricity was flowing through. Even though the pain was localized in my foot, the venom was spreading through my body, and so was the tingling. Soon, my fingers tingled as well, and later even my lips. That was a bit worrisome because I didn’t know at the time whether the venom of a sting ray could be fatal or not. It would have helped if I had known that the ray’s venom is designed by Mother Nature to inflict maximum pain to deter the predator rather than to kill its prey for a later feast, like snake’s venom.
At the Clinique, the nurse gave me a steroid shot just in case, to prevent anaphylactic shock, and sent me in an ambulance to the hospital in Playa del Carmen. My wife happened to be on the beach at the time of my incident and so she was by my side all the time. Considering the circumstances, we both kept relatively calm, except I was fidgeting and restless to deal with my excruciating pain. During our ride to the hospital, the paramedic made a few phone calls, and then provided a bucket of warm water. That was an immediate relief and the pain subsided a bit. I was admitted to the hospital right away. When the doctor looked at the wound, he had no doubt it came from a ray. He brought a bucket of very hot water and I put my foot in it. Wow! The pain went away almost completely! I didn’t know what to think. Why didn’t anybody tell me earlier? I could have stayed at the hotel with one foot in the sink and a beer in my hand…
The matter wasn’t that simple though. As the water cooled down a bit, the pain came back quickly and dialed all the way up to the debilitating levels. For instance, when the nurse took the bucket away for a few minutes to bring it back with hotter water, I nearly screamed in agony before he returned. I was given intravenous morphine and some other pain killer and the waiting game began. I had to stay in the hospital until I was able to manage the pain without the hot water bucket. Then the doc gave me local anesthesia, examined the cut to ensure it was clean, prescribed meds, and we were on the way to the hotel for late dinner.
I examined the boot the next day and the sting ray strike came through the hard sole rubber that wraps up the side of the boot. Supposedly, there is no boot that can stop ray’s sting going through. I am confident though that the boot dramatically reduced the severity of the injury!
The hospital care in Playa del Carmen was top notch. Clean, modern, English speaking doctors and nurses. The total for my 6-hour hospitalization, an ambulance ride, and meds came to about 900 USD.
Luckily, I hardly ever go to remote areas with no civilization around. 😀 Happy kiting everybody and I suggest you leave those rays alone!
