The Most Dangerous Sea Creature

[scottfiji]

You should know full well by now Scott not to clarify the inaccuracies of common names. You'll be doing it till you're blue in the face, and the name will still be there, mocking you.

Nobody says "flesh-eating dinoflagellates".

Yes, you are probably right. But in remembrance of C.H.U.D., a cool horror film cold be called F.E.U.D. - Flesh-eating underwater dinoflagellates!

 

[scottfiji]

. . . but ya gotta choose from the list !!!!!

. . . ya just gotta.

In that case, you have to add giant clams to the list. Hundreds of divers are swallowed up every year by those multi-colored monsters. They're killers I say!

 

[cool_hardware52]

d) Sea Urchin

That's gruesome. Hope you are on the mend.

Think I'll blow that photo up and pin it to my front door next Halloween.


Regards,



Tobin

 

[Ishie]

Tagging a single critter as "most dangerous" in the ocean is silly. If it were so easy to decide, we'd all know it by now. Here's a list of known contenders for the title, right off the top of my head:

d. walrus

These can all kill you fairly quick. I didn't include things that er... work on you slow.

A walrus? Really?

For dangerous, do encounters perpetrated by overaffectionate sea animals count? I've heard of some horny dolphin and orca deaths, and know someone who was humped by an elephant seal (and came out unscathed, though that must have been a scary one).

I'll add manta rays to the list. They're majestic and look slow so you burn all your air trying to catch them. Great Whites near the top not just for the attacks, but because you suck down all your air in a breath if you see one. Not to mention those of us that upon seeing one would probably sit on the bottom until we ran out of air rather than heading for the top with the landlord hanging out.

 

[archman]

Good heavens, walrus are very very nasty. There's very good reason there is so little underwater videography of them, even in comparison to other arctic critters. I am not aware of a single polar biologist willing to get in the water near the things.

Very bad tempers. Very long tusks. Very large mass. I'll take my chances with the saltwater crocodiles.

 

[Ishie]

Good heavens, walrus are very very nasty. There's very good reason there is so little underwater videography of them, even in comparison to other arctic critters. I am not aware of a single polar biologist willing to get in the water near the things.

Very bad tempers. Very long tusks. Very large mass. I'll take my chances with the saltwater crocodiles.

Wow, learn something new every day. Didn't know walruses (walri?) had such an attitude problem. I figured a well placed tusk could disembowel you, but they don't have that look like they're among the ranks of the uncharacteristically vicious.

Guess I'll have to cancel my "swim with the walruseses" Arctic weekend.

 

[saildiver]

Which animal is the most hazardous to scuba divers?
a) Great White Shark
b) Tiger Shark
c) Barracuda
d) Sea Urchin

While nearly everyone chooses a, b or c, I am living proof that the correct answer is d. A recent ‘minor’ sea urchin stick required six doctor visits, antibiotics, steroids, surgery (not the wimpy out-patient kind, but an honest-to-goodness surgery in a hospital while under a general anesthetic) and physical therapy.

It started out simply: About two months ago I forgot to pack my dive gloves. I didn’t think it was a big deal, because the water temperature was 72 degrees and I’d been doing dives with students all summer without gloves (it gives us better manual dexterity to resolve issues students might have with straps, buckles, etc.) I led the dive and stopped to check how much air my buddy had left. A large wave swept overhead, creating surge that pushed me backward into the reef. Three tines of a sea urchin stuck about an eighth inch into the middle finger of my left hand, breaking off as they did so.

It wasn’t very painful and I wasn’t concerned, since it had happened before. The treatment was the same as for a splinter: Remove the tines and soak the finger in a very hot solution of water and iodine. The tips of sea urchin spines, however, are much more difficult to dig out than splinters. They are hard to grab with tweezers, break off easily, and have small barbs that cause them to dig deeper into the skin. Because of this my wife was unable to remove the one of the tines.

The next morning there was no evidence of any injury, and I wondered if the tine had simply fallen out while I slept. It hadn’t; about a week later my finger swelled up significantly, with lots of stiffness and tenderness. My doctor isn’t a diver, so I checked the D.A.N. website for direction. Their advice was a course of anti-inflammatory steroids. I showed a printout of the D.A.N. article the doctor, who dutifully prescribed Prednisone.

The Prednisone worked wonderfully. The swelling disappeared immediately … but returned worse than ever a week later once the Prednisone taper ended. The finger was sore and stiff and, if bumped in the middle of the night, would jolt me awake in a flash of pain. A return trip to my doctor didn’t yield much except a recommendation to see an Orthopedist specializing in hands. The Orthopedist, in turn, sent me off to get an MRI that – surprise surprise – confirmed that my finger was swollen and nothing else! Sea creatures sometimes carry a variant of the TB virus on their skins. The urchin spine had evidently worked its way into my finger, penetrating the nerve sheath and infected it with the virus.

His recommendation was surgery to open up the entire finger in a “saw tooth” cut. This would allow him to inspect the nerve sheath for damage, search for the urchin tine, drain and clean it before stitching it back up. This seemed pretty extreme to me, so I sent and e-mail off to D.A.N. They responded within a day and, unfortunately, concurred with the Orthopedic surgeon. While waiting for the operating room to be scheduled I took antibiotics but, like the steroids, they didn’t seem to have much of an impact.

The surgery took about an hour and required general anesthesia. No urchin spine was found; like a guided missile it delivered it’s infection payload and was then absorbed. The extent of the surgery, as well as the pain and swelling afterward, were frankly a bit more than I expected. The picture attached was taken a few days after the surgery.

I hobbled around for a week, hopped up on Vicodin and with a hand so wrapped in bandages that it looked like a club. To my wife’s immense credit I never once heard “I told you so” or a suggestion to curtail my diving.

It’s been about a month since the surgery. The stitches are out and the skin is healing well. The scar tissue, however, makes the finger very stiff and I still can’t bend it fully. The prognosis is good, although it requires daily physical therapy.

No one seems to believe that a small, immobile, non-threatening sea urchin could cause all this grief. Given the “saw tooth” shape of the profile, I’ve taken to giving out a more believable story of how I was bitten by a Great White while saving a small child trapped in a rip current. Even so, you now know the true story!


“Take Away” Lessons
- Always wear gloves, especially when diving through narrow notches in the reef when it’s surgy.
- Watch your buoyancy closely.
- If you get “stuck” by a sea urchin, be sure to remove all tines, then soak the affected area in as hot a solution of water & iodine as possible.
- If you can’t remove the urchin spine get to an ER immediately. Over time the urchin tine will burrow in too deeply to be removed. If treated immediately only a local anesthetic and a small incision will be needed (I know from experience, but that’s another article!) and it will heal quickly.
- Never turn your back on a sea urchin. They may be small and slow, but they are very hazardous!

I hope you are totally Healed.My wife stepped on one in the shallows on Little Cayman about 10 years ago and about 15 spines went into the sole of her foot and a couple spines went underneath her toenails-we were at McCoys and the Old Home Remedy there was to drink two Rum Punches quickly,Pour hot wax all over the affected site ,and about 1 hour later-Remove the wax .The spines mostly came out too-those that didn't were dug out with a sterile needle(more Rum Punch as needed ) by the McCoys(who had plenty of practice at this).However,we were not able to get the spines out from under the toe nails and they remained for a couple years but the pain gradually subsided over a week or so.We did use Ibuprofen for pain control , Mercurachrome -and pain and secondary infection were not encountered.I have to agree that sea urchins are a very common hazard.But even more common run-ins occur with Jellyfish or Man o war tentacles-how many of us have not been stung?Not many I bet?Even though most aren't bad enough to require treatment-you'd better know what to do in case you do(we were both severely stung in the face last summer in the sea of Cortez and thankfully we had our DAN Medical guide with us and although we were on our sailboat at least 50 miles or more from the nearest town-we were able to "jury rig" a treatment from DAN's guidebook to save our faces (Shaving cream -shaved off with the back side of a plastic knife,followed by a vinegar wash-oooooo-that stung). But I agree with others that Man is far more hazardous to scuba divers than the other "Marine animals" on the list. I'm trying to play by the rules here, but he did not say "marine animals", only animals-so, after humans, the first most dangerous animals to humans (including scuba divers ) are Mosquitos (who carry so many deadly diseases-malaria,yellow fever, etc), followed by bees-whose stings kill even more people every year than humans do...........Peace......Saildiver.

 

[carbon]

Wow, I'm in a state of shock just looking at the zig-zag job on your hand!

I've managed to avoid urchin spines (so far -- fingers crossed). I've read and heard a few different remedies. Melting wax and peeling it off to remove the spines seems a smart thing to do.

Is there a "standardized" treatment?

I wish you a complete and speedy recovery!

Carbon

 

[archman]

Is there a "standardized" treatment?

Well, the "pound the spines into mush and take some tylenol" strategy is generally not well favored by the medical community. I just enjoy hearing about it when other folks bring it up.

'Cept now its ME bringing it up! Doh!

 

[The Kraken]

Hey, Arch,
I knew they are pretty aggressive on land and especially during the mating season, but I had no idea that they carry that attitude to the water with them.