{"id":82250,"date":"2025-05-07T16:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T16:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/82250\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T16:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T16:09:10","slug":"swimmers-close-brush-with-death-after-stingray-narrowly-misses-artery-in-rare-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/82250\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimmer’s close brush with death after stingray narrowly misses artery in rare attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pam Bennett, 68, was snorkelling on South Australia\u2019s Southern Yorke Peninsula when she was attacked by a stingray and she told how she was lucky not to suffer the same fate as Steve Irwin<\/p>\n

A swimmer <\/a>was skewered after being attacked by a stingray and is lucky to be alive as a 16 centimetre barb narrowly missed an artery.<\/p>\n

Pam Bennett, 68, a volunteer marine researcher, said she was fortunate not to suffer the same fate as Steve Irwin <\/a>after suffering the rare attack while part of a team snorkelling around 50 metres from the shore at Treasure Cove on South Australia<\/a>\u2019s Southern Yorke Peninsula. The group were investigating the unusual number of fish that had been found dead in the area, when Ms Bennett said she noticed she was above a stingray.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe stingray that attacked Pam Bennett(Image: Nine)<\/p>\n

Pam, from nearby Minlaton, said she \u201cquickly swam out of the way\u201d but it was a short time later that she was attacked and she didn\u2019t see it coming.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t long after that that I felt the barb go into my arm,” she told ABC News<\/a>. “I actually didn’t see that stingray \u2014 he had come from behind, I think. He had actually attacked. That’s not their normal behaviour.”<\/p>\n

It is understood that another stingray also tried to lash out at another member of the team but missed while Ms Bennett said that it felt like she had been bitten by a dog.<\/p>\n

Pam was laid out onto her back and floated to the shore by the other snorkellers. She told how \u201cblood was spurting out quite a bit\u201d from the wound which was just above her right elbow.<\/p>\n

\"MsMs Bennett told of her close brush with death(Image: Nine)<\/p>\n

“I kind of expected them to take the wetsuit off and see teeth marks,” she said. Ms Bennett was first taken to Yorketown Hospital and then Adelaide to have the barb removed.<\/p>\n

Fortunately the 16-centimetre barb had just missed the brachial artery which if severed can lead to a person falling unconscious in 15 seconds and they can die within 90 seconds.<\/p>\n

“It was actually laying alongside the brachial artery but it didn’t penetrate the artery. I could have been a Steve Irwin. In hindsight, I feel like I’ve won the lottery because I’m amazed it was me and not a young child,” she added.<\/p>\n

Snorkelling along with Ms Bennett was marine biologist and environmentalist Mike Bossley who narrowly avoided being attacked by the stingray and afterwards he told how she had been “bleeding quite heavily”. He stated: “We had to get Pam out of the water, she was bleeding quite heavily, but she’s a very brave woman and didn’t panic or anything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pam Bennett, 68, was snorkelling on South Australia\u2019s Southern Yorke Peninsula when she was attacked by a stingray…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[186,70,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-82250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114467423146634862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}