INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Australian Teen Forced To Wait 24 Hours To Remove Stingray Barb After Attack

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 09:57 PST, Sep 14, 2014

An Australian teen spent more than 24 hours with a stingray barb embedded in his leg, yet he says his life was saved by memories of a similar attack on his countryman Steve Irwin in 2006.

17-year-old Corey Jamieson was swimming off Mindil Beach in Australia’s Northern Territory for a high school class when the stingray struck, according to The Daily Mail.

“I was swimming in waist-deep water,” Jamieson related. “I was standing on the bottom and it was so murky you couldn’t see the bottom. I felt a sharp pain that I thought must have been a broken branch in my leg. But it was really the serrated edges of the barb. I freaked out a little bit, but all the students down in the water with me helped me get to the beach.”

Thanks to rolling blackouts at the hospital where he was treated, Jamieson had to wait over 24 hours to have the stingray's barb removed.
An Australian swimmer had to wait 24 hours before having a stingray barb removed from his leg, fearing that removing it himself would cause uncontrolled bleeding

The animal’s barb sank into his leg, just above his right knee, narrowly missing the bone. Despite the pain, Jamieson stopped himself from removing the barb, which had been driven 6 cm into his leg, fearing that doing so would cause uncontrollable bleeding and tissue damage.

“Steve Irwin did pop into my head when it happened,” Jamieson related, adding “I remembered that they thought Steve Irwin had pulled the stingray barb out.”

Jamieson’s mother says that she doesn’t blame the school for the incident, as they can’t possibly be aware of what is in the ocean, although she expressed her frustration that surgery to remove the stingray’s barb from Corey’s leg was postponed for over 24 hours, due to rolling blackouts in the area, News.com.au reports.

Darwin Private Hospital, where Jamieson was transferred after the stingray attack, runs off a single generator, and was experiencing power outages that general manager Anthony Davis admitted were disruptive. Elective surgeries, such as removing the barb from Jamieson’s leg, had to give way to life-saving and emergency procedures.

“It was annoying and frustrating to wait for so long, but I do understand that my life wasn’t in danger like some of the other people that were coming into emergency,” Jamieson related.

As The inquisitr reported earlier this year, video of Steve Irwin’s death reportedly exists, although the cameraman who was with him when he died refuses to release it. When the pair came upon an eight foot stingray, it lashed out at Irwin, fatally wounding him.

Jamieson endured two hours of surgery to remove the stingray’s barb and will likely be released from the hospital on Monday.

[Image via toptenz.net]

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