A Tale the Authorities Tried to Suppress
As far as I can recall, the first I heard about box jellyfish appearing off Thailand was about 8 years ago. Naturally I did not read about it in the Thai media. It was a long piece in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. It revealed there had been several deaths off Phuket directly as a result of the jellyfish stings. The creatures had started to appear as global warming brought them further north from their natural habitat off Australia.
The article also revealed that quite a few had been caught in fishermen's nets. It went on to speculate that it was natural to assume many hundreds more were lurking uncaught .
Eventually, the Thai authorities had to make the public aware that these sometimes deadly creatures were indeed in the seas off Thailand. Next week, though, a book will be published making it clear that box jellyfish had appeared much earlier. "Traveling with Ghosts" by Shannon Leone Fowler tells of the death of her boyfriend as a result of severe stings off Koh Pha Ngan 15 years ago. It also tells of the doctor's insistence that she sign the death certificate without its being translated. When she refused and had it translated, it gave the cause of death as "drunk drowning." The implication of that being even more deaths had occurred before Ms. Fowler's boyfriend.
Live Science explains that the tentacles of one Australian box jellyfish carries enough venom to kill 60 humans. The Australian government's website recommends the following immediate treatment -
Quote:
To treat a sting, call triple zero (000) for an ambulance and pour vinegar over the tentacles on the person’s skin to deactivate the sting. You may need to provide emergency assistance including
cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Keep the person calm.
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Never substitute vinegar with methylated spirits or alcohol because they will make the sting worse.
If you are in tropical waters and you can’t clearly identify the cause of the jellyfish sting, then treat the sting with vinegar and seek medical assistance just to be safe.
It is important to note that the box jellyfish that appear in Northern European waters are a different form of the species. Treatment is not the same.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...aveling-ghosts
