A surfer sitting on his board was suddenly “slapped” in the face with what he first thought was a fellow surfer pulling a prank, but an instant later he realized a fish had speared him in the nose.
Steve Kezic of Australia was at a surf school in Indonesia with eight other surfers when the freak accident occurred.
A 1-foot garfish featuring a needle-like beak came flying out of the water and pierced the cartilage in Kezic’s nose before its beak snapped off, leaving the beak sticking out of his nose.
“At first, I thought it was the boys throwing some seaweed around, as we tend to do that for a laugh,” Kezic told Perth Now. “But a moment later I realized there was a fish in my face.”
The coach from the Playground Surf Resort on the Mentawai Islands in Sumatra rushed to help Kezic.
“The coach noticed it before I did,” he told Perth Now. “He was kind of looking at me, and I was confused…and then I realized.”
Kezic, blood pouring down from his nose, was helped onto a boat and was quickly transported to shore. He began to freak out, not knowing where the closest hospital was located.
Fortunately, one of the surfers in the group was a doctor and set up an impromptu surgery station on a table on an outside deck at the resort.
Doctor Kyle Kophamel removed the beak and patched the nose with three stitches in a procedure that took about 45 minutes.
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“I was incredibly lucky,” Kezic told Perth Now. “It felt like one of those up-to-the-gods chance events.”
Kophamel told 9 News Australia that the wound entered one side of his nose and came out the other, adding, “Personally, I’ve never had anyone rock up to my emergency department with a fish stuck in their face.”
Kezic told 9 News he “was really lucky I didn’t lose my eyesight, because I just turned and the garfish came right across. If it was a fraction higher it would have taken my eyes out.”
In fact, Kezic enjoyed plenty of good fortunate.
“I was incredibly lucky for Kyle,” Kezic told Perth Now. “He saved me from a world of trouble.”
Photo courtesy of News 9 Australia.