Guy Rowles is recovering after getting stung by a box jellyfish at Cloudbreak. Photos: Instagram//Guy Rowles
An Australian surfer who was stung by one of the most venomous jellyfish on Earth while on a surf trip has recounted his story, and it’s a terrifying listen.
When Guy Rowles was stung by box jellyfish, he was surfing Fiji’s Cloudbreak. Cloudbreak is not exactly close to a hospital. A 40-minute boat ride and a 20-minute drive, in fact. And all of that travel knowing that he was stung by something that not only “felt like someone poured like hot oil on my arm and they weren’t stopping,” but that he could potentially die before reaching the hospital.
Rowles, a talented surfer, was on a surf trip with his father when he was stung. As he was paddling, he felt the jellyfish hit him. “Straight away it just was so intense,” he told Sky News Australia. “Like my arm was on fire.”
Rowles, like many surfers, has been stung by jellyfish before — bluebottles, to be exact — but this was far worse. He paddled over to the guide boat to ask for advice. The guide had one look and told him he needed to get on the boat right away. “That’s a box jellyfish,” the guide said.
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A few minutes into the frantic boat ride, Rowles began to feel the scarier effects of the jellyfish venom. Those effects can include severe limb, abdominal, and back pain, headache, vomiting, profuse sweating, difficulty breathing, irregular heart rate and increased blood pressure, as well as a sense of impending doom.
A few years ago, I was spearfishing in Mexico. I’ve been stung by jellyfish a million times, but this felt different. Within minutes, I had angry red welts tracking around my forearm, up my ribs, and somehow, down my hip and butt. A few days later, those welts transformed into disgusting, fluid-filled blisters. Two weeks later, things were calming down. I don’t know what it was that got me, but it hurt. A lot. I can only imagine, then, the pain of a box jellyfish, coupled with the knowledge that box jellyfish can kill a person in less than five minutes.
My forearm, four days after a run in with an unknown jellyfish. Photo: Haro
After the guide wanted to pee on Rowles’ stings (not a good idea, despite what you may have heard), Rowles asked ChatGPT what to do. That advised against peeing on it. Instead, it told him to seek immediate medical attention, which he was in the process of doing. His breathing began to falter, and he had the terrifying realization that he might be in some real trouble.
“I just looked at my dad after a while and I couldn’t really breathe, it was like breathing through a straw, and I was going, “F*** dad, am I going to die?” Rowles said to Sky News. “It just felt like my heart was going a thousand miles an hour and my chest was just f***ing caving in. It was so hectic.”
On the way to the hospital, Rowles called his mother and two of his best friends to keep them apprised of the situation, just in case the unthinkable happened. Amazingly, despite the fact that nearly an hour had passed since he was stung, when he reached the hospital the doctors soaked his arm in vinegar, shot him up with morphine, and watched his heart on a monitor. According to Rowles, it was too late to administer the antivenin.
“I remember looking at one of the doctors’ eyes when I told him, I was like, ‘oh I got stung’, and then the doctor was like ‘yeah, it’s a box jelly fish we think.’ And then like the nurse’s eyes just went white,” he said.
Thankfully, Rowles managed to recover just fine. He’s got some marks left over, but he’s also got one hell of a story.
