16-year-old drowns after being stung in the neck by a weever fish

A teenager has died after being bitten by a poisonous fish off a beach in Costa.

An initial autopsy of the death of the 16-year-old concluded that he had gone into anaphylactic shock which could have been caused by the poison the fish had released.

The body of the unnamed boy was found from the sea off the popular resort of Playa d’Aro on the Costa Brava 70 miles north of Barcelona.

His parents sounded the alarm after he went missing while snorkeling.

He allegedly suffered a small injury to his neck, near his Adam’s apple, and marks on his face that were incompatible with normal drowning.

An autopsy showed that a fish bite was the cause of his death, although forensic experts are still awaiting toxicology test results.

Investigators were given a video recording that allegedly contained footage of the attack, which the teenager’s parents attributed to a type of weever fish.

The fish has been identified locally as a spotted weever.

Weever fish bites can be very painful and lead to swelling and redness in the foot and are known to trigger heart attacks or cause severe allergic reactions.

They normally sting people’s feet because they spend most of their time buried in the sand, burying their thorns as they discharge their poison.

A huge fire that started at a Bournemouth beach hut last month was started after a kettle was boiled to treat a suspicious fish bite.

Hut owner Fiona Tew, 36, recounted at the time how she was engulfed in flames after she started heating water to treat her young nephew’s pain and she went to fetch cold water to another tap.

The Spanish boy at the center of the fish bite tragedy comes from Montagut i Oix, an inland municipality about an hour and a half drive from Playa d’Aro where he lost his life.

Although he was not named, his parents released a statement that video given to police shows the teenager finding a jellyfish 100 yards from the beach while snorkeling, this who “ took him to a strange, colorful fish with a harmless face. “.

They said in a statement, carried by the local press: ‘He was only able to film him for 30 seconds from a distance and at the last second he disappeared and bit him around the jaw. ”

Weever fish are found in the Mediterranean as well as the Atlantic and in summer they are frequently found near the coast.

Beau Gillet, an RNLI lifeguard supervisor, said earlier this month: ‘I have seen adult men cry in pain’ after a warning was issued to bathers following hundreds of UK heat wave bites.

Cornwall rescuers have reportedly treated more than 70 people in just one week for the bite.

Treatment recommendations after a bite include soaking in hot water and removing the thorns from the skin with tweezers or a bank card.

Playa d’Aro is a short drive north of Sant Pol beach, where a member of the Spanish Paralympic swim team was forced to outlast two sharks in May.

Ariel Schrenck reassembled equipment after hearing her mother screaming from the shore when she spotted two telltale fins and saw the animals heading in her direction.

The 19-year-old, who was part of the Spanish squad that competed at last year’s Allianz Para-swimming World Championships in London, was training at the time.

He told a Spanish TV interviewer after his shock experience: ‘I paused for a second to catch my breath when I saw my mother screaming like crazy.

“ I felt a terrible panic at that point and started swimming like crazy. I think it’s the fastest 100 meters I’ve ever done.