A teenager has died after being wrapped in two meters of tentacles by a deadly box jellyfish.
Mark Angelo Ligmayo, 14, was at Eimeo Beach, just north of Mackay, in Queensland, Australia, with his family when the incident happened at around 2:30 pm on February 26, Saturday.
Nick Guinumtad, his father, told that his son had been standing in waist-high water for about 10 minutes when he came running out onto the beach, entwined in more than 2 meters of box jellyfish tentacles.
Agnes Guinumtad, Mark’s mother, said her son had emerged from the water with two-meter long tentacles wrapped around his arms and legs before collapsing on the shore.
Mrs. Guinumtad said: “I could see my son’s face, and I could feel the pain. I kept praying and praying, I didn’t stop praying. I prayed that he would say something.”
Lifesavers and other beachgoers performed CPR on the boy and spent over 40 minutes resuscitating him before ambulances arrived. Paramedics then took the boy to Mackay Base Hospital for further treatment but he could not be saved after suffering from cardiac arrest. A police spokesman said he had died by 3:30 pm.
Ross Gee, Eimeo Surf Life Saving Club president, said they had doused the boy in about 30 liters of vinegar. Gee said: “We were there as he exited the water, quickly after that he was semiconscious.”
“We had a defib on him the whole time, he never lost his pulse, there was shallow breathing. We doused him with approximately 30 liters of vinegar, all the vinegar on the beach. After that I was confident enough to remove all the stingers from his legs and hand,” Gee added.
Beachgoers witnessed the boy stumble from the shore, in a devastating look wrapped in tentacles. According to eyewitness reports, the sea beast’s tentacles were well over six feet long and parents screamed at their children to get out of the water.
Kirby Dash, a beachgoer, says she saw the boy coming out of the water with an “unreadable expression on his face” before he weakly called for help. She told the Daily Mercury: “He had gone into shock. His legs were covered in tentacles.”
Jenny Rees from Surf Lifesaving Queensland told ABC News that volunteer lifeguards had done everything they could. Rees said: “They got him out of the water and he had lots of tentacles around his legs, which they pulled off. A lot of vinegar was administered and CPR was administered immediately.”
She added that warnings had been in place that bathing at the beach was dangerous and they have put three red flags up along the beach. She claims that beachgoers have been warned to stay out of the water.
Box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) are the most venomous marine animal in the world. Their tentacles are up to three meters long covered in poison-filled darts, called nematocysts, which cause severe pain and leave whip-like marks behind.
Tentacles often remain stuck to the victim and can be removed with vinegar. Vinegar inactivates the jelly’s nematocysts, which means the tentacles can be removed. The stings can cause paralysis, cardiac arrest, and death within minutes of being stung.
Leading doctor, Lisa-Anne Gershwinm, a leading sting expert, said people should be complacent around the water. She wants protective swimwear to be mandated at beaches without nets, particularly those in high-risk areas.
The teenager had arrived in Queensland just three months before the horror jellyfish encounter after his family decided to start a new life in Australia.
Mark Angelo, along with his mother Agnes Guinumtad and sister Nickole Guinumtad, had been reunited with his father Nick Guinumtad after three years apart. They celebrated their first Christmas as a family in three years in December and despite being in quarantine said it was one of their happiest memories.
His parents have thanked those who worked so hard to save their son and cared for their daughter throughout the chaos of the afternoon. Mrs. Guinumtad hopes to take her son’s body back to the Philippines where his beloved grandmother can see his face one last time.
The beach will be closed until further notice and residents have been told to stay out of the water.
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