Mexico: Freak Whale Accident Nearly Kills Minnesota Woman, Injures Her Sisters

A freak whale accident that occurred during a Mexican vacation has left a Minnesota woman and her two sisters injured.

The woman identified as Kim Armstrong was vacationing with her two younger sisters in the Mexican resort town of Cabo San Lucas when the freak whale accident occurred. According to KARE 11 News, the incident happened back in March 2015 when the trio were returning from a snorkelling trip. The boat they were travelling in hit a whale that had emerged out of water for breathing. There were several other people on board the boat which hit the whale, including an unidentified Canadian woman who later died of her injuries following the accident. The Inquisitr had in fact reported about the accident back in March.

Kim Armstrong is still recovering from the accident almost three months after it happened, reports USA Today. A neck brace she wears all the time painfully reminds her about the freak accident. Describing the accident to reporters, Kim says she still does not remember what happened in the moments after the boat hit the whale. She does however remember the forceful impact. Describing the incident, Kim recounts.

“My last thought was we’re going to hit that whale. I think the captain of the boat tried to swerve to miss the whale and I think we were probably in that spot that hit the whale,” she said.

By the time Kim regained consciousness, she was surrounded by a group of people. Her sisters noted that Kim was slurring in her speech was looking dazed. Sensing trouble, they asked her not to move and rushed her to a nearby hospital. The very next day, she was flown into San Francisco where she underwent further treatment.

“My sisters knew something was wrong with me right away,” she recalled. “I was slurring my speech and had a really vacant look in my eyes.”

According to Kim, her doctors told her that her survival without becoming a quadriplegic was a miracle.

After surgery, my trauma doctor came in and said, “you’ve shocked all the radiologists in the building, you should be a quadriplegic,” she said.

Kim’s injuries were of grievous nature and she was left with a broken neck as well as several fused vertebrae. She considers herself lucky to be alive and recalls that the Canadian woman who died in the incident was sitting just a few feet away from her – seconds before the boat hit the whale.

Meanwhile, Kim is on her path to recovery and is expected to regain full health. She will be off her neck braces in about two weeks from now. Doctors however believe she might need another surgery. While boats hitting breaching whales are extremely rare incidents, accidents of this nature do occur. In January this year, the Inquisitr had reported about a similar incident in Hawaii involving a humpback whale.

[Image via KARE 11]