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A fisherman has told how he screamed when a stingray thrust its barb into his leg on a boat - and then had to endure an agonising 2 1/2-hour trip back to shore.
Dan Rawlinson, a commercial fisherman from Otumoetai, Tauranga, suffered paralysis after the attack on Tuesday just before 1pm.
Mr Rawlinson, 32, had been at sea for four days when he and his crew pulled in a net with a catch that included a stingray.
But the stingray, about the half the size of a car bonnet, attacked.
"It saw me and bent it's tail around, it looked like it wanted revenge on me for catching it," Mr Rawlinson said.
"I'm not usually out on the deck, I'm the captain so I'm usually inside. I went outside to do five minutes worth of work - I should've stayed where I was."
The stingray jabbed him straight in the left calf. The barb went about 3cm deep.
The feeling was not one Mr Rawlinson wanted to remember.
"I screamed for a start ... I ripped it out and chucked the stingray back over the side," he said.
"It was like 30 times worse than a bee sting."
The barbs of the ray's tail snagged on the inside of his leg as he tried to remove it, and with each jerk his leg was torn further.
"It practically paralysed my leg, I couldn't do anything with it," he said.
In agonising pain, there was yet another hurdle for Mr Rawlinson to face - the boat was just off Motiti Island, 2 1/2 hours away from shore, and therefore just as far away from help. But he just got on with it, packed up, and drove the boat home.
"I just had my foot up on the rest and it was just throbbing," he said.
"I'm obviously not allergic."
Mr Rawlinson eventually got back to dry land and was picked up by St John Ambulance as soon as he arrived.
He was a little disappointed that he had gone through so much pain for something that looked quite minor, he said afterwards.
"It just looks like a little puncture wound," he said.
"I was just going to put a plaster on it."
Mr Rawlinson was given antibiotics and did not have to stay overnight in hospital.
"There was no symptoms that the poison was running through my veins. It was just sort of an isolated spot on my leg, so I shouldn't die," he laughed.
But he cheerfully conceded it was a drama he could have done without.
"The life of a fisherman is not that easy."
- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES
