In a harrowing incident at Bahia Beach, south of Tampa in Ruskin, Florida, a woman was impaled by a stingray's venomous tail spine.
Kristie O'Brien, the victim, recounted her ordeal to FOX 13, stating, "I was trying to stay as calm as I could. But I was certain that I was going to die because, I mean, like everyone has like this picture of Steve Irwin when he literally was punctured in his chest."
Steve Irwin, famously known as "The Crocodile Hunter," tragically lost his life in 2006 when a stingray barb pierced his heart while he was filming in the Great Barrier Reef. The incident led to fatal bleeding.
O'Brien was reportedly wading in knee-deep water when she was stabbed more than four inches deep in the back by a Southern stingray. The venomous spine narrowly missed her lung by mere centimeters. "As soon as I hit the water, I felt like I had been stung by something," she told FOX 13. Her husband was the first to notice the stingray attached to her. O'Brien wisely refrained from removing the barb herself.
Paramedics on the scene cut the stingray at the base of its tail, and the spine was later removed at the hospital. O'Brien remains hospitalized, receiving treatment for poisoning from the stingray's venom.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission advises beachgoers to shuffle their feet when entering the water to avoid disturbing the bottom-dwelling fish. Stingrays, which often bury themselves in the sand, are generally defensive creatures, and attacks are rare.
O'Brien anticipates a few more days in the hospital to monitor potential bacterial infection from the water. "It's still incredibly sore there," she said, referring to her back. "It's like spurts of pain. And they say that's just because of the toxin that's actually in the barb of the stingray itself."
Despite the traumatic experience, O'Brien remains undeterred from returning to the water. "I'll go back in the water again, probably not in the bay," she said. "I probably won't be swimming in the bay. But I mean, stingrays are out there, and we're in their environment."
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