2023-08-31 15:21:00
The holidays near Perpignan ended badly for a seven-year-old Belgian from Flanders. While he was enjoying his last day in the south, on Barcarès beach, the child came out of the sea screaming, his parents told Laatste Nieuws. “I have never heard a child scream so loudly. He came back running very quickly, his ear to his shoulder. I am an osteopath and at first I thought he injured his neck while diving,” explains the boy’s father.
Gradually, as the young tourist continued to scream, red marks appeared on his shoulder, neck and ear. His parents took him to the first aid station on the beach, but no one understood what the child was a victim of. Thinking that the latter had been stung by a jellyfish, his father plunged him into sea water but that did not change anything. “Even at the pharmacy they had no idea what he had. When your child screams in pain like that and cries ‘Dad, I’m going to die’, fear touches your heart”, testifies the dad once more.
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”I want to alert other parents”
A few hours later, the little boy’s injuries changed color and his ear doubled in size, which led the parents to take him to the emergency room of Perpignan hospital. There, a toxicologist recognized the pattern of the tentacles of a sea anemone on the child’s skin and was therefore able to make the correct diagnosis. But the healing of the little victim, taken from vomiting in particular, took more than a week. “If he had been a few years younger, he might not have survived,” says the father, adding that now only the impressive scars from his wounds are still visible. “If I tell this story, it’s to alert other parents and children because we didn’t see anything coming,” he concludes.
“Sea anemones are far from harmless species,” confirmed KU Leuven toxicologist Jan Tytgat. According to him, if the venom of anemone is very studied all over the world, there is no real antidote once morest this poison. Warm seawater, however, can help neutralize the anemone’s venom somewhat.
For these Belgians, summer holidays have turned into a nightmare
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