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Stingray barb shoots 8 ft into boy's stomach while fishing

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j0k3r

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While I certainly dont doubt that the boy sustained a serious injury from a stingray and is lucky to be alive, I call total BS on the story of how it happened and will await the trial lawyers version, which I imagine is soon to be released with an accompanying offer for settlement.

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View PostAhhh..... But if one was that 'large', then you'd have enough Gravitational Pull to attract the Barb..........cwm40.gifcwm31.gifbeers.gif

 

LOL biggrin.gif

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
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View PostI don't know if all stingrays are created equal but the ones over here in the pacific will make a grown man writhe in pain for hours. I can imagine taking a stinger to the belly but I wish I couldn't.

 

 

StingrayBarb.jpg

 

wrap a handle on thay bad boy an you got yourself a rust free knife prolly wouldnt be impossible to put an edge on either

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Like many others in this thread, my BS meter was pegged after reading this "story", and still pegged after reading the "revided" version. First off, I can tell you unequi that a stingray barb would not fly off, travel 8 feet, and bury itself in a kid's stomach.

 

"How do I know?" you ask. Easy, I have been stabbed a by a stingray (the photo of the stingray barb in Otro Mundo's post is my photo). I stepped on the stingray, it swung its tail (and barb) up and out of the water penetrating my waders, fleece, and 3 inches of my leg. Despite all of this, the stinger didn't break off. It pulled right back out of my leg, and stayed attached to the stingray's tail. Stngray barb's are not like bee stingers. They are not designed to detach easily. They don't dislodge or come loose; they break off. Bees die after stinging, but a ray must still fend of its attacker (most often a shark). If their stinger was a one-and-done kind of weapon it would not be much good because it takes a long time for a barb to grow back. They typically only break off if they hit somehting hard like bone, which sharks don't have.

 

As far as hitting something hard, breaking off, and then flying through the air to stab the boy goes, I say no way. First off, the barb by itself has little weight. You need weight and speed to penetrate something. When I got hit, I could feel the power behind the tail swing, but it wasn't that fast. I could see it happening in slow motion, I just could not jump fast enough. I ceratinly wasn't fast enough to sink an unattached barb into anything. I could throw the barb in the photo at you as hard as I could, and at most the point might break the skin if it hit you straight on.

 

What most likely happened was that they caught the ray, and they were messing with it. It was probaby docile until someone poked it or squeezed it, and "bam" it stuck the kid. Then, they made up the story so they didn't look stupid, letting their kid mess with a stingray. When people started crying BS about the barb flying 8 ft through the air, they changed the story to blame some other mysterious unnamed fisherman to deflect the blame. "We were just standing there minding our own business, when this dude.....", " We told him not to do it...". Ask any cop, those are the hallmarks of a made up story. Boys mess with stuff, they get cut, banged up, bruised, burned, etc. Dad was probably involved, too. Stingrays are "cool"

 

Live and learn.

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Was this family alone on the pier that day? The story, as published in multiple sources, says that there were other fishermen and that a nurse (who was also fishing) saved the kid's life by telling them not to try and remove the stinger.

 

It would require the cooperation of multiple people to keep this alleged lie out of the news. Unless one of those other fishermen comes forward then I would assume the family is not lying. The kid suffered a lot of pain. I will not take even the remote chance of adding to that pain by calling him and his family liars since there is no evidence that they are.

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I knew this was BS, as for people who said it came flying out becuase of the force of the tail out of the water...the spine is at the base of the tail, not at the end of it, hardly enough leverage to launch something 8 feet with enough force to penetrate the kid. Plus, ive stepped directly on top of a stingray, with my full weight on the barb, lifted my foot and the spine stayed attached to the ray. It was a small ray so I'd assume that a small spine would come undone from the ray's body easier than a large one. Either way...makes for a painful day especially when you've got a plane to catch in 4 hrs.

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View PostIt is very likely that the barb came from the stingray. It's the closest I can think of to an Occam's Razor explanation. Evolution did design the barb to come out of the tail. That is how a stingray can survive, It would not do much good if the stingray ended up pinned to it's predator.

 

 

Cool fact, most barbs aren't designed to dislodge upon contact, but rather slice into flesh and be torn out, inflicting serious damage and keeping their weapon biggrin.gif

 

 

Do they normally shoot the barb? No, they are normally completely underwater, shooting for distance would be ineffective. Their powerful tail is intended to make direct contact with the threat while still underwater. In this case the tail was out of the water and probably slapped against something (as was already suggested) such as a rock, a pier post, a fisherman's waders, etc.

 

 

Because the tail was out of the water it was moving much faster than it normally would if underwater. Water provides a lot of resistance. The barb failed to find a target in the object the tail hit and the momentum shook the barb loose and sent it on it's completely random way.

 

.

#1 white bucktail. #2 bunker chunk. #3 bone Redfin

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Cool fact from Shark and Ray specialist website elasmodiver.com/

 

What happens to the Stingray after it loses its tail spine?

 

If the stingray loses one of its barbs while defending itself, it immediately begins to grow a new one. Stingrays shed and re-grow their spines on a regular basis regardless of whether they use them.

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