Needlefish stabs boy in the neck injuring him severely

The sad story of a 16-year-old Indonesian boy who suffered a heart-stopping injury to his neck thanks to a needlefish is testament to the risks associated with the work of fishermen.

According to Odditycentral.com, Muhammad Idul went fishing with a friend when a needlefish suddenly jumped out of the water and literally pierced his neck clean through, knocking him out of the boat he was fishing from.

The bloody incident is said to have occurred on January 18, when the teenager and his friend Sari decided to go on a late-night fishing trip.

They reportedly went out to sea in Buton, off the South East Sulawesi province, and everything went according to plan until Sari turned on his flashlight, which allegedly caused a needlefish to suddenly leap out of the water and lodge its pointy, long jaws in Muhammad’s neck, piercing it from his chin to the base of the skull.

Not only did the force of the attack knock him out of the boat, but the thrashing fish, which remained lodged in his neck, almost made him drown.

Muhammad somehow managed to grab a hold of the fish to prevent it from moving around and making the wound worse, rose up from the dark water and asked his friend for help.

Sari had the bright idea to stop the injured boy from trying to remove the fish, to prevent the bleeding from getting worse. The two boys swam about 500 meters to shore and sprinted to their home village in South Buton.

As soon as the duo got home, Muhammad’s father quickly took him in a car and rushed him to a hospital in Bau-bau, about an hour-and-a-half from their village.

The injury was so delicate that doctors had to be circumspect in removing the fish from the youngster’s neck. They removed most of the needlefish so just the head remained, but they couldn’t do more because they lacked the proper tools.

To remove the sharp head of the fish, Muhammad had to travel to a provincial hospital in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, where a team of five specialists needed an hour to carefully clean what remained of the fish and close his neck wound,” reports say.

It is further reported that five days after the surgery, Muhammad Idul was feeling much better but still had a bandaged neck, and couldn’t move his neck to the right, but the wound didn’t hurt anymore.

“I just need to be more careful next time. Needlefish can’t tolerate light – that was why it jumped out of the water and stabbed me,” the 16-year-old told BBC Indonesia, adding he still has a love for fishing regardless of the accident.

Needlefish stabs boy in the neck injuring him severely

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