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Surfer Survives Attack by ‘World’s Most Venomous Animal’

“I was shaking, vomiting, couldn’t really feel my legs,” the surfer said.

Surfer Guy Rowles has shared all about his encounter with one of the world’s deadliest animals. While surfing at Sujees Surf Stay in Fiji’s Cloudbreak, known for having some of the best waves in the world, Rowles encountered something more fearsome. On the first day of his trip, the Australian surfer was stung by one of the world’s most venomous animals—a box jellyfish. “All of a sudden, something hectic stung my arm. It felt like someone had just poured burning hot oil on me,” Rowles told surfing publication Stab in an interview published Monday. Rowles was in the water with his father when he saw the jellyfish’s tentacles wrap around his arm. He managed to pull them off, but not quickly enough. “I’m looking at my dad going, ‘F--- Dad, am I going to die?’” Rowles recalled, describing the pain. “I was shaking, vomiting, couldn’t really feel my legs.” He was rushed to the nearest hospital, but missed the one-hour mark to administer the antidote. Doctors could only douse his arm with vinegar and morphine to help with the pain. They told him that if he’d been stung anywhere else, he could’ve died. “They said I was lucky that I didn’t get it on my face or neck. And that if I wasn’t young and healthy, it could’ve gone a lot differently,” Rowles said.