Today I would like to interrupt my cute-sweet posts and share with you some extremely interesting and dangerous information. Yesterday I saw a great and tragic movie about the Irukandji jellyfish. I have never heard about it before, but the following jellyfish is a silent, mysterious, and the main danger – almost INVISIBLE killer found, that inhabits waters of northern Australia.
The Irukandji is believed to be the most venomous creature in the world and the main point – you can’t notice it, since this killer is not more than 3 cm long and the whole body of this small creature is covered with poisonous cells!!!
The term Irukandji refers to an Australian Aboriginal tribe – these people suffered from the so-called Irukandji syndrome very often.
Sting syndroms are awful and a person can die in a couple of hours. The sting results in pain and welts. For the first 10 minutes a person feels nothing more than a painful irritant but in the following 5 minutes the pain becomes unbearable and it is too late to save a life.
First aid
First of all, treat with suspicion all unexpected pain, no matter how unimportant it seems. First aid must be quickl. Then visit a hospital for a more thorough check. Unfortunately, no exact treatment is currently available for the Irukandji syndrome.
Thanks for this. We better be more careful now
You probably won’t believe me but I’ve been stung by one of these and survived with no more medical help than a children’s Tylenol and some oxygen. The pain was unimaginable and lasted for hours. It is not deadly if you have a healthy heart and can withstand high blood-pressure and rapid heartbeat for sustained periods. But it is not something I would want to do again. Your best bet to avoid these is to check local conditions (I got stung on the Great Barrier Reef) and not go swimming or diving during the summer months in warm tropical waters.