Sea Lice Chew Swimming Teen’s Leg In Australia, Leaving Him Riddled With Hundreds Of Wounds
Sea lice are being blamed for the bloody attack on a teen swimmer’s legs in Brighton, Australia – a suburb of Melbourne.
Sam Kanizay, 16, left his Melbourne home for some fun at the beach in Brighton on Saturday after spending the earlier part of the day at his soccer game. After being submerged in the water for about 30 minutes, the Australian teen’s legs went numb.
When the Melbourne teenager got out of the water, his legs were all bloody and covered in what has been described as sea lice. According to report by the Guardian, Sam Kanizay’s relatives said small marine creatures were eating his legs.
Jarrod Kanizay, the Australian teenager’s father, took Sam to a local hospital for emergency treatment for the wounds on his legs. The elder Kanizay said an enormous pool of blood was on the hospital floor stemming from the cuts on his son’s legs, and none of the medical professionals knew what had caused the trauma.
University of Melbourne marine biologist Michael Keough said sea lice are “scavengers” that eat dead fish in the ocean and feed off of living tissue. During an interview with the Age, Keough also said sea lice are approximately one centimeter long and make tiny, often pinprick-size wounds on flesh.
When speaking with 3AW journalists, the Melbourne youth said there were “hundreds” of “pin-sized bites” on both his feet and ankles.
This video shows how sea lice attack. A warning: it’s gross. https://t.co/WBdiCcVJ1y
— The Australian (@australian) August 7, 2017
The Melbourne marine biologist said if Sam Kanizay was standing in the water for a significant amount of time sea lice had ample opportunity to be attracted to him as a food source – especially after the blood started to flow from the many tiny wounds on his legs, feet, and ankles. Keough also said the Australian teenager may have been cold from being in the Brighton ocean water and may not have noticed many of the little bites being made into his flesh, at first.
“Like a hundred pin holes.”
Teen still in hospital after suspected sea lice attack at Brighton https://t.co/YjQbe0J19i pic.twitter.com/HBDvb73Ub1
— 3AW Melbourne (@3AW693) August 6, 2017
Alistair Poore, an expert on marine invertebrates from the University of New South Wales, agreed with the sea lice assessment levied by Keough. Poore added that id sea lice were the cause of Sam Kanizay’s injuries, it was a “pretty dramatic example” of an attack by the minuscule flesh-eating sea creatures.
[Featured Image by Denis Vasilyev/Shutterstock]
