Jaun-Paul ‘JP’ Kalman was only in the waist-deep waters of Balmoral Beach in Australia but when he picked up an oyster shell he noticed something else had taken hold of him
08:00, 16 Jan 2026Updated 08:14, 16 Jan 2026
Jaun-Paul ‘JP’ Kalman said he feels lucky to be alive (Image: Mosman Collective/Facebook)
A dad recalled the horrifying moment one of the ocean’s most lethal inhabitants almost killed him.
Jaun-Paul ‘JP’ Kalman was wading in the shallows of Balmoral Beach, in the Mosman area of Sydney, Australia, at around 1pm on February 5 last year. At one point, he picked up what he thought was an oyster shell – but there was something much worse on it. Wrapped around his thumb was a blue-ringed octopus, a highly venomous creature. “The head of the octopus was the size of a small marble, and its tentacles were wrapped around my knuckle,” Kalman, then 43, said. “The animal was magnificent and coloured bright yellow, with flashing blue rings.”
He noticed that its little blue spots were “pulsating incredibly blue, which means it’s angry” and that “it was biting me”. At the time, he didn’t panic and there was no pain. He flicked it off, sat on his towel and began to google symptoms. But around 20 minutes later his thumb went numb, then his lips. His speech started to slur and so he called his ex-wife, Courtney, for help.
Jaun in hospital after he had been bitten by the tiny but deadly sea animal (Image: Mosman Collective/Facebook)
“By that time I had numbed lips, I was in a state of confusion, and I was having trouble speaking,” he said. Courtney rushed to the beach and drove him to Royal North Shore Hospital, but the venom was already taking hold. “If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead. “I absolutely owe her my life, he later said.
Blue-ringed octopus venom causes rapid paralysis, shutting down muscles while the victim remains conscious. “I could hear everything. I could see everything. I could feel them touching me. I was just completely paralysed,” he told 9News following his ordeal. By 2.30pm, he was unable to move or breathe properly and was put into an induced coma for 20 hours while medical staff fought to keep him alive. “I was thinking, oh God, is this the end? I actually remember saying, ‘I don’t want to die, I’ve got kids,’” he said.
A blue ringed octopus only displays its magnificent colours when it feels threatened (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
After waking, Kalman suffered repeated episodes of paralysis while in hospital. The day after he was discharged, he then collapsed in Aldi while shopping. He said: “I had to stop in the aisle, and I knew something wasn’t right. The next thing I was on the ground, completely paralysed.”
Despite the trauma, Kalman says the incident has left him grateful rather than fearful. “I am the luckiest man alive. If it were one of my kids who had been bitten, they would not be here today,” he told Mossman Collective. Blue-ringed octopuses are only around 12cm to 20cm, quiet and not aggressive. But their bite contains tetrodotoxin – which is 1,200 times more toxic to a human than cyanide – a poison with no antidote. Experts warn that the animal usually only displays its infamous blue rings when it feels threatened, to warn off predators. Although exact figures vary, around 11 fatalities caused by this type of octopus have been recorded in history.