A woman tourist was pinned to the deck of a sightseeing boat by a 300lbs stingray after it came hurtling out of the sea as she cruised off the Florida Keys.
Jenny Hausch, 40, was knocked down by the spotted eagle ray, which torpedoed out of the water and landed in the charter boat in which she was a passenger.
She was trapped and gasping for air under its 4ft wide body for three to four minutes.
Beautiful but deadly: A spotted eagle ray (file photo) like the one that knocked Jenny Hausch to the deck of the boat
Nightmare cruise: Jenny Hausch struggled desperate to free herself from the 300lb stingray which leapt aboard this 26-foot catamaran
Boat captain Kelly Klein said:'The ray was slamming this way and slamming that way and she was trying to crawl out backwards from under it, but it kept landing on her.
Skipper: Captain Kelly Klein was in charge of the boat when the 300lb stingray pinned down a passenger
The bizarre incident took place off the island of Islamorada.
It came almost exactly three years after widow Judy Kay Zagorski, 57, was killed by a spotted eagle ray that leapt from the waves and struck her in the face while she stood aboard a motor-cruiser off Marathon, also in the Florida Keys.
The blow sent Mrs Zagorski, of Michigan, crashing to the deck, fracturing her skull and causing a fatal brain injury.
The spotted eagle ray is also the same species that killed Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin in 2006.
He was impaled through the heart by a ray while diving on the Great Barrier Reef, off Australia.
Wildlife officers on patrol off Islamorada described yesterday how they heard the sounds of panic from across the water as Mrs Hausch, who was on holiday from her hometown of Chicago, Illinois, was sent sprawling by one of the giant sea creatures after it slammed into her.
She was one of several passengers aboard a 26ft catamaran for a private fishing cruise run by Two Chicks Charters, of Islamorada.
Spotted eagle rays, like the one above, are not trying to attack humans when they leap from the ocean, say experts - instead they may be trying to flee from predators
Terror in paradise: The tourists were on a charter fishing boat off Islamorada Key in the Florida Keys (file photo)
'We had just passed the boat and we heard screaming,' said Bret Swensson, an officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
His colleague, officer Aja Vickers, who had seen the stingray leaping, told WFOR television station in Miami: 'I could see the ray bouncing around in the boat. I knew ‘Oh my gosh, the ray’s in their boat.’
'I didn’t know if anybody had got hurt. All the kids were crying.'
Mrs Hausch’s husband and others on the boat eventually managed to lift the creature off her and usher it back into the water. She did not require hospital treatment.
Captain Klein told the channel: 'My motto is when you get on a Two Chick charters boat, there's no drama, and boy they messed up that whole thing.'
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, shown here with his son, was killed by a spotted eagle ray in 2006
Wildlife experts say that stingrays do not leap to be aggressive, but may jump occasionally to shake off parasites, avoid predators such as sharks, or while giving birth.
Officer Vickers said: 'This is not an ‘attack’. These things are not looking to, you know, have a little human meal. It’s just a one in a million chance.'
In 2006, millionaire property developer James Bertakis, 81, narrowly escaped death when a spotted eagle ray launched itself at him during a fishing trip off Lighthouse Point, 40 miles north of Miami, piercing his lung and heart with its razor-sharp, venomous barb.
His survival was dubbed a miracle by doctors.
It is not just stingrays that have been involved in occasionally devastating collisions in Florida.
On the state’s Suwannee River, sturgeon fish – which have armour-like plating on their backs and weigh up to 200lbs – have knocked boaters unconscious and caused injuries including broken ribs, collapsed lungs and ruptured spleens during dramatic aerial somersaults.
And less than two weeks ago, Florida resident JoAnn Lorek, 67, suffered a sprained ankle when a 660lbs dolphin bellyflopped into her boat as she cruised with friends off Marco Island, Florida.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371032/Woman-tourists-pinned-boat-deck-300lbs-stingray-Florida-Keys.html#ixzz1HzObUxAE
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