By Caroline Gentile ’13, News Section Editor

The Friday before Spring Break, as I walked out of every class room, each of my teachers wished me a “safe” Spring Break. “Why ‘safe’?” I wondered. “Why not just ‘good’?” Looking back, my teachers’ wishes seem prescient, like they already knew what random misfortune would befall me while on vacation in Captiva, Island Florida: I got stung by a sting ray.

I remember a few years ago when Steve Irwin died from a sting ray sting to the heart. Because I was not particularly knowledgeable about sting rays, I figured that the sting ray had just electrocuted him, which obviously resulted in death. It was not until a sunny Thursday afternoon that I learned—the hard way—that when sting rays sting, they don’t electrocute you; instead, they release a neurotoxin when they puncture you with their barb-covered stingers.

It started when I decided to go for a walk by myself along the beach. It was about 85 degrees outside, so I got hot and started to walk in the water, about waist deep. All of a sudden, I felt a something ‘bite’ my foot—hard. I screamed and sprinted out of the

water before I could see what had gotten me. My toe was bleeding, but, because I was so naïve about sting rays, I figured I had just been bitten by a crab.

After about 10 minutes, my foot started to hurt even more, and it seemed to be swelling up and turning purple. The beach attendant, Emanuel, took one look at my foot and ran off to get help. That’s when I realized that it probably hadn’t been a crab.

25 minutes later, after Emanuel had radioed for help, security showed up. They called 911 and informed me that I had been stung by a sting ray. Although sting rays are usually docile, they get defensive when they are disturbed. “You probably stepped on it, but couldn’t see it because it was hiding under the sand”, said the security man. My mind immediately jumped to Steve Irwin. “Oh my god,” I thought, “What if I end up like him?!?!”

While sitting on the beach, with my purple, painful foot and sobbing hysterically, I was amazed by how many people wanted to help me. A pediatric E.R. doctor and an O.B. almost immediately offered their assistance, and several people looked up what to do in the event of a sting ray sting on their iPhones. As it turns out, the best thing to do is to put the affected area in a bucket of really hot water so as to neutralize the neurotoxins. A young man and his sister raced off to find me a bucket filled with hot water, and returned just as the EMTs showed up, 45 minutes after security had called them.

The hot water helped ease the pain immensely. My mom was kind enough to take a picture of me with my foot in the bucket of hot water. She wanted photographic evidence to show my dad, because there is no way he would have believed that I had been stung by a sting ray.

I was then taken to the nearest urgent care, where the doctors cleaned out the wound and gave me antibiotics. I couldn’t walk on my foot, so the next day I got to be in a wheel chair at the airport, allowing me instant access to the front of every line. After a week, my foot was almost back to normal.

Unfortunately, my foot got infected as soon as my antibiotics ran out. My foot turned all sorts of dark, menacing colors, and swelled up until it was about double its normal size. I had to go to the hospital to get stronger antibiotics through an IV. While I was sitting in my hospital bed, on the first day of school back from break, I bitterly thought about how much I hate sting rays. I then realized that, technically, I had attacked the sting ray; it had not attacked me. I wonder if the sting ray is bitter, too…