This happened to a friend of mine about 15 - 20 years ago and trust me, it is a true story.
A friend of mine decided to show his young nephew the joys of spearfishing.
So, armed with a gidgy (a small diameter aluminium shaft with prongs one end and propelled by jelly rubber the other) he snorkled a few metres out from the beach with his nephew paddling beside him.
After a while he spotted a fish and decided to enlighten his nephew as to the type of fish so as to educate him. "This is called a Woblegong, he explained also known as a Carpet Shark."
Upon hearing that it was a type of Shark the kid panicked, and although my friend tried to subdue him by explaining that if left alone it was no threat, the young nephew was becoming histerical.
My mate was quite a solid bloke and quite bouyant so he told the kid to get on his back and he would take him back to shore.
On turning around he realised that he must have disturbed the shark when he felt a set of sharp fangs sink into his foot.
So as not to upset his nephew any more than he already was, he paddled back occassionally pulling his foot back to try and release the Sharks grip, and although he was somewhat in the state of panic he did not want to let his emotions show.
As he got to shallow water the Shark didn't want to let up and my mate desperately tried to shake it loose.
Finally, when he got to the beach he asked his nephew to get off and looked down at his foot. Impalled right through his foot was his own gidgy. Unfortunately as he turned around he touched his foot with the end of the gidgy, and thinking it was the Shark, pulled hard to release it, thrusting the gidgy further into his foot. With each continual attempt to pull his foot away from the imaginary Shark, pushed his gidgy further through his foot.
So there he sat on the beach with a gidgy right through his fin and foot, and unable to move.
Eventualy a couple of beach joggers came along and carried him to their car and drove him into hospital.
Is that the end of his problems? Not quite.
After getting him to hospital and explaining to the hospital staff that they had a man in their car with a spear through his foot, an orderly was despatched with a wheel chair to collect him.
No probs. stick him in a wheel chair and whisk him down the corridors to the surgery. Around one corner there was a set of shelves, the orderly probably quite experienced new how to get around the corner leaving enough space to clear the foot rest on the wheelchair. But obviously no experience in wheeling someone around the corner with a couple of feet of fin sticking out.
As they went around the corner the fin started going flop flop flop as it hit the divider between the shelves, my mate was screaming and the orderly was trying to subdue him by saying "Don't worry mate we'll be there soon." Until he realised what he had done, and then became most apologetic.
My mate is not the agressive type and explained the guy that it was just a mistake and not to worry, as he was trying to hold the gidgy up to reduce the pain, sitting there like Captain Neptune.
Finally he got to the surgery. The Doctor approached him with a pair of bolt cutters, clamping them around the first prong snapped it off.
The jarring from the bolt cutters sent a bolt of pain right through his foot.
You know when I said he wasn't the aggressive type. Well people do change. The Doctor was advised where my mate was going to still the f#%@ing gidgy if he tried to extract it using that technique.
So after pain killers it was successfully removed.
I'm not sure if he ever went spearfishing after that as we lost contact with each other.
The End
A friend of mine decided to show his young nephew the joys of spearfishing.
So, armed with a gidgy (a small diameter aluminium shaft with prongs one end and propelled by jelly rubber the other) he snorkled a few metres out from the beach with his nephew paddling beside him.
After a while he spotted a fish and decided to enlighten his nephew as to the type of fish so as to educate him. "This is called a Woblegong, he explained also known as a Carpet Shark."
Upon hearing that it was a type of Shark the kid panicked, and although my friend tried to subdue him by explaining that if left alone it was no threat, the young nephew was becoming histerical.
My mate was quite a solid bloke and quite bouyant so he told the kid to get on his back and he would take him back to shore.
On turning around he realised that he must have disturbed the shark when he felt a set of sharp fangs sink into his foot.
So as not to upset his nephew any more than he already was, he paddled back occassionally pulling his foot back to try and release the Sharks grip, and although he was somewhat in the state of panic he did not want to let his emotions show.
As he got to shallow water the Shark didn't want to let up and my mate desperately tried to shake it loose.
Finally, when he got to the beach he asked his nephew to get off and looked down at his foot. Impalled right through his foot was his own gidgy. Unfortunately as he turned around he touched his foot with the end of the gidgy, and thinking it was the Shark, pulled hard to release it, thrusting the gidgy further into his foot. With each continual attempt to pull his foot away from the imaginary Shark, pushed his gidgy further through his foot.
So there he sat on the beach with a gidgy right through his fin and foot, and unable to move.
Eventualy a couple of beach joggers came along and carried him to their car and drove him into hospital.
Is that the end of his problems? Not quite.
After getting him to hospital and explaining to the hospital staff that they had a man in their car with a spear through his foot, an orderly was despatched with a wheel chair to collect him.
No probs. stick him in a wheel chair and whisk him down the corridors to the surgery. Around one corner there was a set of shelves, the orderly probably quite experienced new how to get around the corner leaving enough space to clear the foot rest on the wheelchair. But obviously no experience in wheeling someone around the corner with a couple of feet of fin sticking out.
As they went around the corner the fin started going flop flop flop as it hit the divider between the shelves, my mate was screaming and the orderly was trying to subdue him by saying "Don't worry mate we'll be there soon." Until he realised what he had done, and then became most apologetic.
My mate is not the agressive type and explained the guy that it was just a mistake and not to worry, as he was trying to hold the gidgy up to reduce the pain, sitting there like Captain Neptune.
Finally he got to the surgery. The Doctor approached him with a pair of bolt cutters, clamping them around the first prong snapped it off.
The jarring from the bolt cutters sent a bolt of pain right through his foot.
You know when I said he wasn't the aggressive type. Well people do change. The Doctor was advised where my mate was going to still the f#%@ing gidgy if he tried to extract it using that technique.
So after pain killers it was successfully removed.
I'm not sure if he ever went spearfishing after that as we lost contact with each other.
The End
