A man has been airlifted to hospital after he was stung by a poisonous fish he picked up while walking on a beach in Wales.
The 70-year-old man is believed to have been stung by the poisonous spines of a weever fish, and was left struggling for breath.
The incident happened close to the pier in Trefor on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales after the man spotted the creature in the shallows and picked it up.
The alarm was raised by the coastguard and an air ambulance flew him to hospital.
A coastguard spokesman said: “Weever fish have spines going along their backs. It’s a small fish but it has a very nasty sting.
“The man picked it up and it stung his hand.
“It’s normally not a life-threatening sting but the man began having respiratory problems.”
Weever fish are common around the British coast line in warmer weather, burying themselves into the sand in shallow water, with their venomous dorsal fin showing above the sand.
As a result, most weever fish stings are to people’s feet. Common symptoms include excruciating pain, swelling and numbness. Irritation can last for over two weeks.
The number of stings reported has risen in recent years, though they are rarely fatal. The only recorded fatality from a weever fish in the UK occurred in 1927, when a fisherman in Dungeness was stung multiple times, according to the British Marine Life Study Society.
