BATHER’S DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 December 1938, Page 3

BATHER’S DEATH

WOUND FROM STINGRAY. ‘ NO POISON DUCTS CARRIED. r . Contrary to common belief,' no poison ducts are carried by stingrays, one of which is believed to have been the cause of the death last Sunday of a young woman who was bathing in shallow water on the Thames coast near Tapu. Mr A. W. B. Powell, assis-tant-director and conchologist at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, said that an examination of such fish had failed to reveal support for the popular theory that they carried a poison gland in their long whip-like tail. It was pointed out by several doctors that a poison would have to be extremely virulent to cause' death as quickly as it came to Sunday’s victim, who died shortly after admission to the Thames Hospital, only 12 miles from the bay where she was wounded. There was no record of fish carrying protective poisons as virulent as that.

Noxious wounds, however, could be imparted by the slime which customarily smeared a hard protruding spine near the base of the stingray’s tail. Intense inflamation and serious sepsis could be set up by a wound from this spine and death could result, but not as quickly as was the case on Sunday. However, severe wounds could be imparted by the lashing of a stingray’s tail, and death might result very quickly from shock and loss of blood. The spine was set at a very acute angle and could protrude from four to inches, a dangerous cutting edge in addition being supplied by the extreme narrowness of the spine, which was no more than half an inch wide. The spine, said Mr Powell, was as hard as ivory and capable of inflicting deadly wounds.'

Mr Powell said he did not think the girl’s death was due to a deliberate attack by the fish. Rather did he think that it had been frightened by her sudden appearance near it and had lashed out with its tail in a panic. Stingrays were commonly shy of disturbances and unless surprised had not been known to attack human beings. They might, of course, lash out with their tail if caught on a fishing-line and dragged into a boat or on to a beach.