Stingrays plot the overthrow of the human race....more attacks reported...
 

LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Florida (AP) -- An 81-year-old man was in critical condition Thursday after a stingray flopped onto his boat and stung him, leaving a foot-long barb in his chest in an accident similar to the one that killed "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin.

"It was a freak accident," said Lighthouse Point acting fire Chief David Donzella. "It's very odd that the thing jumped out of the water and stung him. We still can't believe it."

Fatal stingray attacks like the one that killed Irwin last month at the Great Barrier Reef are rare, marine experts say. Rays reflexively deploy a sharp spine in their tails when frightened, but the venom coating the barb usually causes just a painful sting for humans.

James Bertakis of Lighthouse Point was on the water with his granddaughter and a friend Wednesday when a stingray flopped onto the boat and stung Bertakis. The women steered the boat to shore and called 911.

Doctors were able to remove the barb during surgeries Wednesday and Thursday by eventually pulling it through his heart and closing the wound, said Dr. Eugene Costantini at Broward General Medical Center.

He said Bertakis' case was different from Irwin's because the barb stayed in Bertakis' heart and was not pulled out. Videotape of Irwin's last moments shows him pulling the barb from his chest.

Bertakis was apparently trying to remove the three-foot-wide spotted eagle ray from the boat when he was stung, police Cmdr. Mike Oh said.

Ellen Pikitch, a professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami, who has been studying stingrays for decades, said they are generally docile.

"Something like this is really, really extraordinarily rare," she said. "Even when they are under duress, they don't usually attack."

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:o Are you KIDDING?? This thing actually jumped into the boat with this guy and stung him. Holy crap! I'm NEVER going to the beach again.

In other news.....after a less than spectacular end to my vacation...I really may never go to the beach again. :(

Well this is just fu*king insane. Scary too.

Someone needs to call Aquaman! Ray Fillet's too busy being dead and all...

Fortunaly, this time the goverment has been caught on tape...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E06cNv55jTs

Well, it's half right. It wasn't a stingray, persay, but a Spotted Eagle Ray. And they DO leap up out of the water, but usually don't attack. It was afraid. The boat just happened to be in the way, it seems.

Still, very, um... bizarre. o.O

Well.. altho Man Ray is dead.... the Marvel hero, Stingray, is still about. He's an Avenger (or a former Avenger) too.

Man this is nuts....but it makes sense that somthing as bizarre and rare as a stingray attack would continue to take place...i mean, don't these things happens in threes...?:)

This is just crazy *shakes head* It's a, what, one in a million chance of this happening, yet it has happened twice in two months? That's it! Where's Aquaman? Heck, where's Aqualad?! We need someone to tell these rays that attempting to kill people doesn't do anything good for their reputation.

I think it's one of the signs of the Apocolypse....Sea life revolting

you should have seen the size of the jellyfish that wrapped itself around me in an attempt to do a python impression :cry: I have welts all around my back and stomach and legs and....

dang...I may never have kids :cry: :cry: :cry:

WHAT??
I'm so sorry. Damn, that's horrible.

Sheesh...you may be right...but then again, I don't really remember sea life revolting being one of the signs of the apocolypse...:)