Young German tourist dies after jellyfish sting on Koh Samui
The 20-year-old German tourist died yesterday after swimming in the sea at Lamai beach on Koh Samui, the police said. Another German woman was also stabbed when she went into the water with her boyfriend to offer help.
Staff at the bungalow where the two women were staying told police the two women were first seen on the beach. Soon after, they heard screaming and she rushed to see what was happening. They found the two women crying in pain with jellyfish bite marks on their bodies.
The staff immediately alerted the emergency services. Rescue workers rushed to the scene and administered first aid by pouring vinegar on the bites. They were then taken to Bangkok Hospital on Samui. However, the woman who was stabbed first died after arriving at the hospital. Her friend is still being treated in hospital.
This bite involved the cube jellyfish. Because this jellyfish species has the shape of a cube, it has been renamed the 'Box Jelly Fish'. They carry one of the most toxic fluids in the world in their glands. Many people have already suffered fatal wounds from being stung by the Box Jelly Fish. In addition, the pain is unbearable. He is also called the 'wasp of the sea'. Death can follow within minutes of being stung.
On August 1, a 31-year-old tourist also died after being stung by a box jellyfish while swimming at night on Koh Phangan. In Thailand, this venomous jellyfish is also seen near Koh Mak in Trat and Koh Lanta in Krabi.
The authorities regularly warn about the dangerous jellyfish.
Source: Bangkok Post
Fortunately, the Australian sea wasp, or Chironex fleckeri, is not very common on the Thai coasts. Unfortunately with certain currents, as can be seen here, it can sometimes still occur.
Due to the rarity of the cases, people often do not know how to deal with it, which means that there are still deaths.
Vinegar over the wounds helps with most jellyfish bites, but the poison of the box jelly is only strengthened. So don't.
All you can do is remove the tentacles asap (with a pin set or sharp knife) and rinse, rinse, rinse with warm running water. As warm as the patient can tolerate.
Of course also immediately order an ambulance or go to the hospital in another way for further treatment.
Not just the tentacles or wires. The stinging cells (a kind of arrows, I thought) with which one came into contact, not all seem to have released their poison. That is why they should be removed and rinsed away too quickly. About fifteen years ago near Hua Hin, while swimming, I felt two threads scrape from behind my thumb from wrist over forearm to elbow, immediately with the biting burn I recognized from the first moment of the North Sea jellyfish from my childhood. I haven't seen anything. Out of the water I saw two parallel red stripes. My wife's then fifteen-year-old daughter immediately plucked rather stiff leaves from a vine that 'crawled' over the sand. With that she rubbed my arm firmly, as I understood then (her English was still lousy at the time) it would have a beneficial effect. I was thinking of all kinds of medicines that are extracted from plants. But maybe those leaves are just scraping the fine needle points out of the skin. It is then a trick with something that is often quickly available, albeit not on busy beaches.
Don't be warned by the authorities by means of warning signs on the beach. If these jellyfish regularly injure people, with all its consequences, it seems logical to me that people are warned about this danger.
Ok, you booked a trip to this beach, and then you arrive and then you see a warning sign.
Then you can do two things:
-You don't care. (Then the sign is meaningless)
-You don't dare go into the water. (Then your holiday is ruined)
So: Before you go somewhere, read yourself well and only book after weighing all the pros and cons. Life is not without risks.
Very intense indeed. Can anyone tell me more about the large light-colored jellyfish in Hua Hin and the jellyfish plague there last July/Aug, I thought.
Hi Ruud tam ruad,
Koh mak (near Trat) is close to koh Chang, you should also pay attention there!
But indeed we have never seen warnings/warning signs etc
seen nowhere I don't think a / d Thai authorities spent?
There are signs on the footpath at the beginning of my street that impose parking restrictions. But the visitor is not warned of the dangers of crossing the street. The authorities are not interested in warning about this on the spot: Just know.
The dangers of swimming in open waters, fresh or salt, are legion (bacteriological, worms, venomous snakes, jellyfish, stingrays, boat traffic, stepping into murex spines, etc, and then there are all kinds of factors that can cause someone to drown) and that is also common knowledge, although it is not always thought of. You take the risk or you don't. In places and times where a crowd is swimming, the dangers will probably be quite reasonable, but it is never without risk. If few others are swimming, it is best to inform yourself, but any instructions would usually not fit on a sign.
A few years ago I was seriously stung by a translucent jellyfish in Hua Hin on both arms. Jellyfish was completely on both arms! They took care of me at the police station. They also gave me prescriptions so that I could take care of myself later. Seriously hurt like a burn. Shouldn't come into contact with water with my arms for a week. Stung at 3 PM, at 7 PM the pain has subsided somewhat. After 3-4 days the pain was almost over and the red scars disappeared.
We just got back from Cha-am. Couldn't swim in the sea because of the jellyfish. It seems to be the time of year. Don't the Thai people get stung? They just swim in the sea every day.
Firstly, the Thai swimming outfit at Cha-Am is usually half-length shorts and a T-shirt or even with long sleeves (all about the usual underwear): The regular casual attire. Much less unprotected skin and therefore much less chance of feeling a jellyfish. Bikinis are also being worn more and more, but mainly by those who hardly spend time in the water. Thai men in real swimming shorts have also been seen more regularly for years, but it remains a minority.
Second, there are relatively few Thai people who swim. It is mainly played standing up in the sea. That has two advantages:
a) Jellyfish float/swim by parallel to the shore just below the surface of the water, and are much less likely to collide with a person than with someone sprawled out in the water such as a swimmer; especially if the swimmer swims in/out instead of along the beach.
b) With the eyes half a meter above the water surface, one sees IN the water. Even in Cha-Am's murky sand mud water, dab enough to spot a jellyfish. If you swim with the oven a few centimeters above the glittering undulating surface, you will not see a stitch beyond (bare) arm's reach…
Sorry for my too thick fingers, that should have been: "a person", "deep enough", and "the eyes a few centimeters".
Oh yes, it should be noted that anyone who stands upright with a T-shirt and shorts up to the navel or chest does not reveal a millimeter of skin exactly at the height of the jellyfish passage. They almost always remain at least fifteen centimeters above the knees, and bare arms and hands are kept above the water almost continuously while frolicking.
Yet quite often in Cha-Am I saw a group suddenly startled and, observing the water, step or hop back and forth. Elsewhere I also saw terrible burns on the stomach of a Thai who nevertheless handles the animals professionally: They are eyed, caught and excessively salted, a process in several bins. Whoever handles them in the first bin, then scrubs the heavy rubber gloves that reach to the elbows for five minutes. The Thai are certainly not insensitive to it. In a later tank, people toss and turn between the dead animals with their bare hands. Cut and dried (at least the common white-transparent kind) jellyfish are quite tasty and they have a very special texture in the mouth.
My condolences go out to the family and friends of the German girl, sadly only 20 years old.
Been staying in Lamai for several weeks now, was the talk of the town yesterday. Seems to be rare, but don't go into the sea here anymore.
Maybe a very stupid idea, but why can't they put up nets in the most crowded part? I'm terrified of jellyfish, so only swim in a hotel pool, and of course sunbathe on the beach and sometimes a short splash to cool off, but floating in the sea: NO, I can't. Anyone have an idea what's going on?
Tensioning nets would be possible, but for the small box jelly you are talking about meshes of less than 1 millimetre.
That in turn becomes so weak that fish swim holes in it through which the box jelly can pass.
Tests were done with this in Australia, but it turned out not to work. Larger jellyfish can be stopped, but often also easy to see and avoid. Fortunately, these are not very common on the Thai coasts.
Don't want to scare you, but you are in a tropical country. I've already seen them take a snake out of the pool twice and that was in the middle of the city in Pattaya.
Was the conversation of that moment, but 10 minutes later everyone was back in the pool. But those things do happen.
As far as I know there are only jellyfish in Thailand during the rainy season, especially during the transition from hot to rain and from rain to cold season. The rest of the year there are normally no jellyfish, I was told when I still lived there.
I saw jellyfish from mid-October to late May with varying frequency but never more than three weeks without seeing too many in my opinion. And the rest of the year I simply never spent time near Thai sea water. I tried to go swimming almost every day, and I also paid attention. My experience applies to both the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea (in particular Cha-Am and the coast of Trang, but also in other places and I did not get a different impression there).
There are seasonal differences in the frequency of jellyfish days and numbers of jellyfish on those days, but temperatures also play a role (perhaps due to the influence on currents) and it is never really predictable. In Cha-Am, the average chance of jellyfish has become much higher than twenty years ago, and that is still better in Trang. Per month, every month, I can still swim in the sea there 80% to over 90% of the time, although I will keep the swimming sessions a little shorter for a few days, for example if I once again see a pink one of more than a motorcycle wheel on the beach. beach, or if I have felt a very nice but recognizable prick for half a second a few times while swimming without seeing anything. I don't know if I'm scared or a brave guy, but not taking observations into account at all would make me a dumbass.
There are very local places where the current with drifting jellyfish stays further from the surf than most swimmers, also for example somewhere just south of Hua Hin, so that the risk can be very limited within a wider area where there is a high risk at that time consists. I'm not going to comment on which locations, though, because that might depend on winds, temperatures, and seasons, and I never stayed there long enough.
The responses here confirm my belief that a death from an animal bite (snake, shark, spider, jellyfish, etc.) is quite exceptional in Thailand.
In countries such as India, South Africa, and Australia it is daily fare, Thailand is safer in that area (in other areas too, by the way…).
In any case, it is a drama for the relatives of the girl.
And for me, the big coward, it is a reason to go to the seas and jungles even less than now.
If this happens more often, can't the hospitals on the islands deal more efficiently with this type of accident?
It will happen more often.
If you fish all the fish out of the sea, the jellyfish will have free rein.
They eat partly the same food as fish, so with less fish, more food is available for jellyfish, so more jellyfish will come.
I know quite a few fish species that eat vegetable plankton.
A jellyfish is a plant-based planktonic jellyfish.
Fish usually eat animal plankton, which in turn usually also eat plant plankton, which in theory could lead to more jellyfish. However, in practice this is not the case.
The amount of plankton in the seas is so high that about a million times as many fish and jellyfish as there are today could live on.
The amount of jellyfish that are seen on the coasts has to do with currents and temperature.
What we see in jellyfish on the coasts is not even a promile of what lives in the seas.