Home » Stinging electric blue goo, poison scorpions, and the wisdom of crowds
Stinging electric blue goo, poison scorpions, and the wisdom of crowds
It was another blazing sunny day. In our curious ‘non’soon all the torrential rain that we should be swimming in is a planet’s width away, throttling retirees in Florida and washing out backyard barbeques by the thousands in the Midwest. I chalk it up to climate change and grab my little crew and head to the beach.
Indians are natural spectators. In fact a crowd is waiting to precipitate out of thin air at the slightest provocation. If you stand in one place and look at say, a pile of rocks, it’s only a matter of time before someone else is wanders over to check out your find.
Two people standing somewhere looking at anything is a mighty fine reason to call your buddies and go give them moral support. Two people and a group of buddies looking at something means run on over, could be important. A person running to see something means stampede. Find an Indian pile of rocks and try it sometime, I dare you.
Needless to say a six foot african-american man with dreadlocks and his assortment of tiny wonder people are naturally a crowd making machine. Yaya’s dreadlocks alone could make their own fortune charging for photographs. We made the mistake of stopping to change on the beach.
Before I had even put the first kids shorts on (under a towel of course) a dozen people were standing around us silently waiting for us to entertain them. In the gaps between their bodies, I could see more people throwing caution to the wind and running to meet the freaks for themselves.
To avoid the crowds, we walked far down the beach. We changed without incedent. The water was cool and very refreshing. Kid A (who is in fact part fish) was soon flopping around without a care. Yaya has invented her own game of run-swim-scream-splash-run with the waves, too interested not to try, but too scared to really get in. I waded in watching them both carefully, then finally relaxing and having a lot of fun.
Time to toughen Yaya up. I collect her from the line of rolling sea foam and hoist her up to my chest. She holds on tightly at first, then does an experimental kick to the water. Hey, this could be fun. A lifeguard waves a flag at us, and I reluctantly come in closer to shore. Kid A joins us and we are all together at last, laughing, playing in knee-deep surf, splashing…
…screaming, pulling, thrashing, grabbing each other. It feels like something is branding my legs with white hot wire hangers. I assume that the kids are screaming because I am, I just want to see what is doing this to me, cant they shut up? Kid A happened to be laying in the water when it hit me, and now he is scrabbling at my legs, very upset. Then I see it, nearly invisible elastic strands lashing kid a and I together, even on his face. I grapple with it, wiping everywhere, then throwing a huge impossibly blue blob onto the sand. The kids are screaming so loud. something all over us.
Out onto the sand, we are all yelling, trying to rub sand on our skin. Kid A is actually trying to bury himself in it by writhing like a snake. I am still on super adrenaline, having picked them both up and dashed out of the ocean. I don’t know what to do.
Now, if anything is likely to draw a crowd in India, it is several freaks with dreadlocks covered in sand shouting at the tops of their lungs next to a pile of blue goo. You would think someone would offer to help, or tell us why the pain is only getting worse, or even if we were all going to die after foaming at the mouth for a few minutes. But the exact same silent crowd quickly assembled, waiting to see what fun shenanigans we would be up to next.
In extreme pain, I pick them both up and bolt for the tree line. “Coconut oil!” one beach bum bar worker shouts. He looks afraid and tells us to go immediately to the hospital. My scooter is far away, we are in no shape to go anywhere. More workers arrive and help us wash off with fresh water. But that is all they can do. The kids are making sounds I have never heard them make.
I decide to run for the bike and ride like the devil for the nearest hospital. On the way, I the same lifeguard who had waved the flag. Stranglely, he is wearing a nonchalant dopey smile. In no great hurry he mentions that this is why he told us to get out of the water. He reaches back and pulls out a plastic bottle with a mini version of the jellyfish that stung us. Was this it?
I am flabbergasted at his attitude. My kids are hurt. I am about to take him back to the surf and drape the jellyfish around his dopey head.
Then she came, the exact person we needed at that exact moment, a grandmother wearing a tacky printed dress with a huge bosom knowing exactly what to do. She was like grandmothers everywhere, in command is a way that makes you feel safe, even if she is a bit absurd. I loved her right away.
In a flash she swooped in, picked up Yaya first (good choice, Yaya was seconds away from actually snapping a vocal chord) and started to rub some home brew remedy made with a fleshy red fruit. I did not notice at the time, but Yaya got the worst stings. Her entire back on one side, down her backside and on down her little leg.
Grandma had a lot of the red stuff. She sternly told Yaya to sit, and gave her repeated applications, each dose followed by an entire pot of water being dumped over her screaming head. Kid A next, all over his chest and face. The stuff is blood red, and looks shocking on their skin.
In bumbles a drunk representative from the cheated crowd. He asks very politely in his Indian drunk guy voice if he could please have a picture. A picture? I am at a loss for words. Grandma tells him exactly where he and his camera can go in Hindi. She’s my hero.
After the kids quiet down from her ministrations, I notice how much I hurt. She does the same for me, coating my legs and dousing me clean. She tells us not to bother with the doctor, just wait a half an hour. I resist the urge to hug her.
We make it to the bike, and Kid A is now nerding out on jellyfish facts for the ride home. Did you know that the biggest jellyfish in the world has no tentacles? We got stung by a jellyfish!? A real jellyfish? He asks every five minutes. he’s back to normal. Kenya is quiet then asks once if we can please not come to that beach again.
Back home, I tried to find out what it was. It was the bluest thing I have ever seen, with a dome about the size of a football and long tentacles that eventually turn clear. It was big enough to sting us all at once. Any guesses?
Oh yeah, and while I was lying here on my bed writing this post, a huge black scorpion walked in front of me on the floor. I feel horrible killing any living thing, but I wanted to be sure it was not some deadly variety. I whacked it with my shoe. Looking down at his alien twitching and now crushed body, my brain forms an inevitable question. How many stings are in store for us here?
post post: … after looking into it, the scorpion was almost undoubtedly a black asian forest scorpion, has a sting but is not dangerous to humans. and we are all fine!
July 15th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
It sounds like a blue bottle, or Portuguese Man-of-War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o%27_War
I haven’t seen them here yet, but in South East Australia, they are very common in the summertime, and swarms of them will flow in with the currents. They sometimes have to close the beaches. Everything I have heard and seen about their stings sounds like what you experienced.
So sorry you and the kiddos went through that. I imagine it must have been stressful on the baby in utero as well. Thank God for the wonder granny that came to your aid!
July 15th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I’m so sorry this happened to you, I hope you are all feeling better now.
And yes I think it was a Blue bottle. According to the local paper( http://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=6437&cid=26 ) they have been seen on Goan beaches recently. My husband(who is Goan) told me about them the other day and he said most people had never seen them before in Goa so hopefully you will not meet any again!
July 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
wow, that is not how i expected this post to end when i began reading it. freaking awful! i’m glad you’re all ok.
thank god for the kindness of knowledgeable strangers in situations like that.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Rae, you had me in your thrall, heart pounding as I read this! Thank God for grandmas.
We had a similar incident at the beach on a domestic shore and no grandma in sight, only me. I don’t know how I knew this, but I knew that urine would counter-act the stings, and vinegar. I ran to the house and got vinegar and doused my daughter’s stings with it. But in the wild or in the absence of vinegar, pee will work. Gross, but true.
Small children can go into shock or have trouble breathing if they happen to get it on the face, neck or chest, I learned later; or even if they are just stung over a large area, so it can require going to the ER. In our case, it didn’t, and a day later my daughter was ready to go back into the surf, with caution.
It was traumatizing, for sure. Just the other day we were talking about going back to the beach, and she said, “But I don’t want to go back to the place where the jellyfish got me.” That was four years ago and she’s still got dread about it.
I’m glad you and the kids are OK, thank God for that. And to balance the “what’s in store for us here?” question, we live in middle America and have had all sorts of traumas, too; life happens and it can make you breathless with fear and shock, sometimes. “In all this, we are more than conquerors.”
By the way, all the text on this page is centered all of a sudden.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
i am very flattered that anyone could mistake me for Journeymama, i am in awe of my wife’s writing.
this actually happened to me, the hubby. kenya, kai and i often go out on the weekend to swim. if it had been rae i would have pt the ocean in a headlock and squeezed jellyfish out by the cubic yard until there were none left. nobody touches my baby! (neither one)
July 15th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Chinua, I got stung a couple of years ago and the pain was like nothing I have experienced. The lifeguard at our beach sprayed me down with ammonia and told me to rub sand on it afterwards. It almost completely stopped the burning immediately. Good luck in the future.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Wow, I’m so thankful that you’re all okay. And praying for peace in your hearts as you greet each day…
July 15th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Wow that is crazy!!! Something stung Matty in Mexico one time too, and I’m not sure if it was a jellyfish or a stingray. Probably jellyfish. It has such an innocent name.
I pray for you guys daily asking for aid in keeping you well and safe!
Miss you and love you,
July 16th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
My heart is in my throat!
I had thought, as your post began, that you were going to write about conquering that child-fear of the ocean - each of my boys has played near the shore but needed a dad to bring them out deeper and teach them how to judge the waves…but then!
How awful!
How miraculous that grandma showed up!
I am in awe of your lives there and glad you are all okay.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Wow, I am so glad for that grandmama on the beach. Sounds like an angel to me! When we were in China, my kids were on the sidewalk crying and screaming about something, and same thing, sthe crowd gathered, and I was asked if they could take a picture and started videoing. Lets just say I was glad at that moment they couldn’t understand my english, but I am sure they got the meaning!!! Glad you are all okay, and will continue to ask for safety!
July 16th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Chin-wuah,
Hey, nice writing man. Love the comedy of it. I have been reminding my Dad of your assessment of our comedic style: lots of it, some of it’s funny. You kill me. I place you squarely in the same camp Chuck (or rather Cap’n Chinukka).
So here is my advice. I am actually shocked that no one else has mentioned this. Pee on it man! Maybe I was told this in Australia, or it comes from growing up on the beach. Hit that sucker with ammonia.
How are the kiddos doing post trauma? Taht part was not funny. Hopefully Kenya is not serious about not returning to the beach.
Bless you all, and Praise God for Grandmas!
July 17th, 2008 at 5:53 am
How glad I am, Chinua, that JM was not there! She might have had the baby right then and there! Hopefully she was at the flat quietly resting while you were out doing daddy duty! I will continue to pray God’s protection on all of you.
July 17th, 2008 at 6:21 am
in case you were wondering where Kid A got his nerdyness, i think its me. there are some interesting things about bluebottles (aka Portuguese Man-o-War).
they happen to not be jellyfish after all, but a floating colony of symbiotic polyps. two kinds of polyp stings, another fills the bladder with CO2 another handles reproduction and so forth. strange beasties.
also many people have said that the urinate on yourself cure doesn’t work on the Portuguese Man-o-War stings. they say it actually makes the cells, which could still be on the skin, sting again. same for vinegar and other basics.
and you know, now that i think of it, JM is a nerd too. yeah i know we have dreadlocks and everything, but we both are dyed in the wool card carrying nerds. Kid A didnt have a chance.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Such good writing. Sat there riveted, open-mouthed till it sunk in that this wasnt just thrilling writing but actually really hurt in a flesh and blood kind of way. Good therapy, I hope, for mind and body to turn these experiences into words and story - your history in the making.
Thank you for sharing it with us.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
my God, that’s pretty brutal. Glad everyone is now okay. If you’re able to, just think of what a great story this is making.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Wow,
That sounds traumatic. To say the least.
May I just say I’m impressed with the bit where you carried two screaming children away from the beach even while stung yourself.
Parents are given strength to do pretty crazy things.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Ohhh, how awful. I got stung once by a group of some kind of small jellies of the coast of Costa Rica. My hubby and I were snorkeling and we were far from shore so I swam quickly to a rock island and the only remedy I had heard of was urine. Yea. Well, it worked. The sting left and we swam to shore. I am so sorry your kids had to go through that. Do you know what the ‘grandma’ used to cure the sting?