Weaver fish have a nasty sting

I took a trip to Santander (North coast Spain) to visit my friends in 1998.

They were teaching English as an excuse for surfing. I was a learner and used to naively

paddle out into the big surf after them and just get mullered.

One evening the waves were milder and I thought "Right this is it". I was pushing the board out through knee deep water when it felt like I'd stepped on a fishhook. I carried on out but the

pain started up my leg. I had no idea what had got me and hobbled back to the beach Cafe for advice or an antidote but it was closed. My mind panicked and the pain was intensifying so I hopped (literally) 200 yds over to the otherside of the bay where my friends were way out to sea.

Dusk was falling.

I screamed and waved madly at them for some time eventually catching their attention.

The Spanish local among them muttered "Scorpion fish", stuck me in the back of his van

and drove at speed to the local hospital. By this stage the pain was frighteningly beserk.

At the hospital they stuck me in a wheelchair still in my wetsuit and pushed me into a curtained room. I swear they were giggling at me behind the cloth. Eventually a nurse appeared and produced a needle the size of which produced a reflex "NO" from me understandable in any language.

I knew where that was about to go.

So second choice was a brown horse pill but it did the trick.

There was still a residual niggling pain in my toe about a month later when a letter with a Spanish postmark plopped on the mat. The girls from the bar? My mates had learnt to write? No. A bill for a for about a 100 notes from Santander hospital.

Did I pay it? Did I f**k.

BTW they like sandy shallows so you should scuff along as you walk. Apparently. Sent in by Charlie

I WAS SURFIN AT WITTERING A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO , THE SWELL WAS SMALL AND AS I RODE A WAVE IN , I STEPPED OF THE BOARD STRAIGHT ON TO A WEAVER FISH , AT THE TIME I THOUGHT IT WAS A DRUGGIES NEEDLE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAD BEEN WASHED UP ONTO THE BEACH , THE PAIN WAS NOT IMMEDIATE, BUT WHEN IT CAME THROUGH IT HURT A LOT , I PUT THE FOOT IN A BOWL OF HOT WATER AND IT KILLED THE PAIN , I HAD A BLACK THING IN MY FOOT FOR MONTHS AFTER, I DON'T PADDLE ABOUT IN THE SHALLOWS NOW , AND HAVEN'T BEEN STUNG SINCE, JUST BAD LUCK I GUESS. ROB THE TREE SURGEON.

Hi all, just stumbled on your site and read with interest the stinging stories on Weever Fish...

North Cornwall 1976...Long and Hot, and anyone that didn’t know someone who hadn’t been stung lived a long way from the sea..Big pain, little fish. But then again...hands up who’s peed on their feet and other peoples, trying to get Urchin spines out..(1978 surfing gran canaria ‘San Nicolas de Tolentino’)

Kind regards, Tim the photographer

Two weeks ago I got stung by a weaver fish while out fishing. It caught me on my little finger on my left hand. Besides three hours of EXCRUCIATING pain while having my hand submerged in above 40 degrees Celsius water (breaks down the toxins), my hand grew to about double its size within minutes after being stung. After about a week the swelling disappeared, but two days ago much of it it came back. After the first week my finger was covered with large blisters that turned into deep sores when they eventually broke. The skin also lifted all over my finger.

According to the doc when my hand got swollen the first time round some poison got trapped in the swelling, and as the swelling dropped the poison got released again, hence the reoccurring symptoms. By now, two weeks later I am quite fed up with having constant pain, stiffness and itching sensations.

Now I am on antibiotics and had to get a tetanus booster as well.