I wish I knew this when I had to deal with a fireworm. I don’t remember what I ended up doing but I do know it hurt way more after.
I threaten my black photon with the bucket, my family find it funny watching a grown adult messing around with a fish and a bucket as if I was a child.
That must’ve been a scare when you realised then, don’t think I could have taken having palytoxin in a cut calmly.
Luckily it was early enough that it wasn't really a huge issue, just got put on some general antibiotics, if I recall correctly. I lived in Kansas at the time, and nobody there had any idea what that was and kept telling me I was wrong. Finally they had to call a Dr. from Florida to confirm things and figure out what to do for treatment. I ended up having to spend the night in the hospital, just for observations, and the next morning while doing their rounds I had probably 35 people in my room all interested in seeing this thing they'd likely never see again in Kansas
, for an hour/hour and a half.
Funny thing with my second palytoxin in the eye was I was wearing glasses and it somehow got around them and went straight in the eye. Luckily you notice something like that right away and I rinsed eye for like 10 minutes. Still issues after, but not as bad as it could have been. I was lucky!
I get that. The second time I was thrown down I wore thick rubber gloves to do anything else with the light.
OMG. I have never seen a pic of these in someone. They really unleash those bristles don't they?! Love the part about you roommate jumping on the opportunity to use your pain to his advantage. Haha.got stuck by a lionfish.
called poison control to see what, if anything, i needed to do.
poison control operator: soak your hand in as hot of water as you can, without burning yourself
possible respiratory or cardiac arrest.
pain may be so severe you may need to go to the er for pain meds (back in the eighties when getting pain med scripts was stupid easy)
after the phone call....
my room mate, in his late twenties and high since he was twelve years old, tells me i'm in pain and we need to go to the er and get that script.
my girlfriend, who later became ex #2, stayed up all night watching/waiting for me to goin to cardiac/respiratory arrest.
the hot water did the trick.
also.... been bitten by tank inhabitants during feeding.
and bristley wormed.
The worms, I can't take the worms. Everyone must stop with their worm stories. Haha! ;-) Those are great pics!Bristleworms and fireworms are definitely not the same on the pain scale. They're called fireworms for a reason. I had some years ago on fresh imported live rock, and regularly snorkel with fireworms in St Kitts. They're a whole other level of pain from a bristleworm. See this pic of an actual fireworm.
On that note, Millepora fire coral also sucks for most people, but I've never been bothered by it. On a recent snorkeling trip my friend got knocked into a stand by a wave and his arms and legs were covered in rashes for about a week. The reefs in St Kitts can be pretty brutal. There are urchins everywhere here.
Giant colony of Millepora fire coral
Average reef floor in St Kitts littered with urchins
