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Holidaymaker left bleeding and with severed tendon after fish bite on Costa Blanca beach

The Local Spain
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Holidaymaker left bleeding and with severed tendon after fish bite on Costa Blanca beach
Image of injury after it was stitched up at Elche hospital Photo: Ayuntamiento de Elche

A holidaymaker has released photos of a horrible injury she received when she was bitten while swimming off a beach in Elche, Alicante.

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The 40-year-old Spanish woman let out a blood curdling scream and was dragged bleeding from the sea by her husband and a lifeguard who came to her aid while she was swimming with her five-year-old son on DAY.

“She felt a great pain,” her husband told local newspaper El Informacion. “And let out a scream that scared us all."

She was paddling in shallow water which came to just below the knee and at first, she presumed she had stepped on broken glass.

But she was taken to hospital medical staff said it was clear that the injuries were sustained by a fish bite.

She was treated for a partially severed tendon in her foot as well as several other cuts that required stitches.

She was discharged several hours later and left the hospital on crutches and with a bandaged lower leg.

The couple from Valladolid in northern Spain  were on the last day of their holiday, staying at a campsite near El Rebollo beach in Elche on the Costa Blanca.

 Lifeguard service together with local police patrolled the beach looking for the culprit and caught a large Bluefish, which they believe was responsible for the incident.

Known as Pez Golfar in Spanish, the species (Latin name Pomatomus saltatrix) can measure between half a meter to a meter in length and is commonly found in Mediterranean waters.

It does not normally attack people but preys on smaller fish in the shallow water.


Image of a bluefish, the likely culprit. Photo: Wikimedia

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