I can't help but wonder if he would have survived had he left that barb in place . Impaled objects should never be removed outside of an operating room.
Hindsight is a marvelous thing. I wonder what we would do put in the same situation...
It was still attached to the stingray. Damned inconvenient, since I presume it was still quite alive and trying to swim away.
There was discussion of this on Fox News, I cannot remember if it was Dr. Badin or another doctor, I've seen so much about this story, but they said that the poison the barb emits isn't really that deadly, but pulling it out may have caused more damage as the barb has small hook like projections on the sides, much like a fish hook. There is no way to truly know, but pulling out may have caused more tearing & caused more bleeding into the pericardial sac.
Of course, they also said that pulling an object out, would be a knee jerk reaction, not one that one would think about.
what would he do, hack it off with a knife? or go to surgery with the whole doggone ray in his chest?
"I can't help but wonder if he would have survived had he left that barb in place . Impaled objects should never be removed outside of an operating room."
That's a point, but isn't there venom on the barb? Wouldn't that prove fatal when introduced directly into the heart muscle?