WOMAN AMAZINGLY SURVIVES TWO BITES FROM USUALLY DEADLY BLUE-RINGED OCTOPUS
The octopus has been in the news more than a few times this past year. We’ve seen them escaping from containers, enclosures, and then going for a dry walk. We’ve seen them fighting each other with tools, even throwing things. They are wicked smart. But it’s easy to forget about how many different kinds of them there are. Because at least one species, the blue-ringed octopus, also has a wicked and often deadly venom, tetrodotoxin. It’s a neurotoxin that will slowly paralyze every muscle in your body, until you can’t even breath and then die. Somehow, a woman in Sydney, Australia, survived two bites from one of these little beauties.
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AFTER PICKING UP A PRETTY SHELL, SOMETHING DROPPED ON HER STOMACH: A BLUE-RINGED OCTOPUS
The woman was visiting a beach near Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. This usually sounds like a nice idea, as the beaches there are simply amazingly beautiful. The woman did something that I’ve done thousands of times. She was looking around below her and saw a small shell that caught her fancy. So she picked it up to get a better look. But then a moment later something dropped onto her stomach and bit her, twice. And that something was a blue-ringed octopus! Normally, one would assume that to be a death sentence, even if not instant.
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A BLUE-RINGED OCTOPI’S VENOM IS THE MUSCLE PARALYZING TETRODOTOXIN, WHICH IS USUALLY A DEATH SENTENCE
The woman, not surprisingly, started to experience some abdominal pain near the bit. Paramedics then applied a cold compress to the area as they took her to Royal North Shore hospital, where they monitored her and gave her more treatment for any other symptoms. But somehow, the woman survived her double whammy twice bitten death sentence. Tetrodotoxin may sound familiar to you. It’s also found in pufferfish, ocean sunfish, rough-skinned news, moon snails, as well as a few other species. You probably know it from the first mention, pufferfish. People die every year in Japan from eating the delicacy, fugu.
