Quote:
Originally Posted by SneakySnake
I thought you treated box jellyfish stings with hot water and paw paw. But only after you smack the victim out cold first beacause they won't sit still.
Paw Paw is also good for those spiny puncture stings, any protein sting.
I wouldn't wish a box jellyfish sting on anyone. Having only been stung by a bluebottle which is apparently mild and I did not like it at all.
|
Box Jellyfish stings account for more human death than all the shark attacks, crocodiles and stonefish deaths combined. Tentacles, as many as 60 in number and reaching 5m in length, are each armed with about 5 000 million stinging cells known as nematocysts. Contact with just 3m of tentacles can kill an adult. Unfortunately, all jellyfish tentacles often break off and are free floating in the sea. The stinging cells are all still just as active as if the tentacles were still connected, so swimmers and divers often inadvertently brush against them and get stung badly, even though then never saw any jellyfish at all! You can NOT wash these tentacles off with plain water. That will actually trigger the nematocysts to fire, stinging the victim even further. You need to wash them with vinegar or urine and then scrap them off with the edge of a stiff card.
My wife and I get into a mess with a colony of hydroids (sort of feathery looking sea animals similar to coral, which also have nematocycts to sting pray.) We were diving off the coast of Borno and got swept into a really nasty hydroid patch. We used up every single bottle of vinegar on the island trying to stop the pain, and almost had to be med-evaced to Singapore for treatment. I have NEVER experienced so much pain from any sort of sting before! It was the following week that we both bought dive skins...
Stitchawl