Hey Joe,
Since I now live on the Gulf Coast, and have been coming
here since
I was a child, I must tell the Group a story.
Mom and Dad owned a Condo at Port Royal which is on Mustang
Island
or north Padre Island close to Port Aransas, TX.
Unfortunately, they
sold the condo shortly before Dad died about 12 years ago
when the
housing market in this part of Texas was 'bottoming out.'
At the begining of every summer, it was a family tradition
to come
down here to south Texas from Dallas and spend at least a
week at
the condo, then Mom would stay on the Island, and Dad and I
would go
down and hunt on the Benson Ranch down in the Valley close
to
Brownsville, TX/Matamoros, Tamps. (Tamaulipas, northern
border state
of Mexico)
I was always allowed to invite one friend to come with me on
the two
week trip.
Many things happened to me during my seventh grade year at
St. Rita
Middle School in 'Big D', including my first 'steady'
girlfriend.
So to make a long story short, her parents said yes, and the
first
time that I got into the Gulf water with my first girlfriend
who had
never been to any beach before, I got her/us out to the
second
sandbar of which I had been familiar with since I could
swim, and
we steadied ourselves, finally being able to stand up. We
turned
around to watch the waves form and hit the beach, and it
could have
been one of those magical moments, then I noticed the usual
feeling
in the legs that pulls you forward as a new wave is forming
behind
you, and I did what you have to do to not get caught in the
force of
the wave which is to turn around to watch the 'whitecap',
and at the
proper time, dive down into the sandbar so you don't
'body-surf'
back towards the beach.
I grabbed my friend's hand, and right when I could feel the
sand
pulling towards my knees, as the undertow of the coming wave
was
upon us, I also felt something like a rope constrict around
my chest
and belly. Right as the forming wave pushed up up from the
sandbar,
I felt a sharp pain like a nail had been driven through the
top of
my right foot.
On this certain part of the Island, I had caught a 40 pound
hammerhead (just a baby), and a small Tiger shark as well.
Sharks
often feed inbetween the first and second sandbars when they
are
young, and they usually will go out past the oil derricks or
farther
to deeper waters by the time that they are big enough to
inflict
more damage to a human than a finger or toe loss.
I had seen the 'white' jellyfish all over the beach as
they often
get caught up in the tide and end up as something that you
don't
step on on the way to go swim.
I really was not afraid of 'sea creatures' at this age...
As the water from this wave passed over me, I felt like I
had gotten
caught up in some sort of fishing net, but by the time I got
back to
shore with this darn thing wrapped around me, it was clear
what had
happened.
I had a 10 foot long Portugese Man o' War wrapped around
the lower
part of my body. The paramedics that removed it from my
torso and
legs on the beach told me that it was really a small
specimen as far
as a 'bluebottle' (slang term for these sea creatures) was
concerned.
This did not make me feel too much better as what first felt
like
the ropes of a net were now feeling like searing hot pain as
though
my skin was on fire.
They cut the thing off of me, got me into the ambulance, and
checked
my vitals. They came back a few minutes later, insterted a
shunt-
port in my left hand, pushed Benadryl or Atarax (I'm not
sure), and
hung a bag.
I still have scars on my left leg from this thing at 33
years of age.
I had to bathe almost constantly for about four days in
tepid water
mixed almost 50% with white vinager. I was prescribed
Benadryl which
helped to some extent, but my friend who had managed to keep
her
stance on that second sandbar after I got swept away, would
not go
back into the salt water, even when I was feeling better and
actually felt soothed by the salt water. She had moved to
Plano
(north Dallas suburb) from the mid-west only about a year
before
this happened, and she did not know about the Gulf or the
ocean.
I doubt she has returned to salt water since. It is a good
thing
that Port Royal Condo. complex has several swimming pools!
It took me a few days until I could go out into the sun
without
being in pain. I finally just walked back out into the warm
Gulf
water by myself, swam to the second sand bar, stood up
knee-high in
the Gulf waves and looked back at the shore. I looked at the
water
around me, and I 'let go' of the pain and embarrassment
that this
creature had caused me.
Two days later, we were down on the Benson Ranch, and, well,
let's
just say that after the beach incident, this poor girl
really was
not prepared to handle an early morning south Texas country
breakfast followed by a javelina hunt.
By this age, I was old/experienced enough to hunt without
adults, so
we set out in our camo gear to find and follow the trail of
what
turned out to be about a 150 pound wild boar. I tracked it
for about
an hour until I could hear its breaths. When I got close
enough to
see the boar, it saw us at about the same time and decided
to put
its nose down and charge at us. Wild boar vs. 12 guage 00
buck shot,
and one in the head from my sidearm once the thing was down
but not
quite yet dead and the head was flailing about... Guess who
won?
By the time that we got this poor girl back to Dallas, I'm
pretty
sure that she needed to see a Psychiatrist. After the whole
beach
thing, then watching me field strip a wild boar, which the
ranch
hands cooked and served for dinner, she had pretty much lost
it.
Oh well, Texas really is 'a whole other country!'.
Christian B. Oliver RCPhT (TX)
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