Sting ray strikes again

[geerussell]

These sting rays are playing for keeps.

A Florida man is in a critical condition after a 5ft-wide, 30lb stingray "jumped onto his boat and stabbed him in the chest", AP reports.

The attack on 81-year-old James Bertakis, of Lighthouse Point, occured on Wednesday when he was boating with his granddaughter and her friend. The assault left Berkatis with a foot-long barb in his chest, and his granddaughter was obliged to guide the vessel back to his home where they called for medical assistance.

...meanwhile at a nearby reef, a stingray official was quoted as saying "The croc hunter was just the beginning. Now we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here."

[Black Dynamite]

jumped onto the boat to attack an 80 year old man? Stingrays are a bunch of punks.

[Glenn]

If we didn't have the alpacas already...

[Matt]

I, for one, welcome our new stingray overlords.

[Fool]

LOL, nice.

[geerussell]

Michigan woman dies after leaping stingray gets on boat

A woman from the Thumb died after a large stingray leaped from the water off the Florida Keys on Thursday and struck her in the head while she was on a fishing boat with her family, officials said.
The stingray also struck her sister. She suffered minor injuries and was released from the hospital Thursday afternoon.
The spotted eagle ray surged as high as 8 feet before landing on the head of Judy Kay Zagorski, 55, of Pigeon, who died in the middle of the boat as her mother and father scrambled to try to resuscitate her, said Officer Bobby Dube of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
It's unclear what killed Zagorski -- whether a barb punctured her or she banged her head on the boat from the weight of the 75-pound stingray.
"There was that potential" that a barb punctured her "because there was a large amount of blood from her head," Dube said.
A medical examiner is expected to conduct an autopsy today.
Stingrays usually jump to escape predators, not to attack, said Christopher Lowe, a stingray expert at California State University, Long Beach.
"For someone to be standing in a boat and hit in the head by a stingray is pretty remarkable," Lowe said. "It's incredibly bad luck." Zagorski's family couldn't be reached for comment.
A man with Michigan connections suffered a similar incident in 2006, one month after "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray.
James Bertakis, who founded a Roseville manufacturing company, was on a boat near his home in Florida when a stingray flopped aboard and punctured the then-81-year-old's heart. He survived.

[DrRay11]

I will have to have a talk with my relatives...

Although that last one was more of a mistake since there was no stab.

[Fool]

WTF!

Stingrays > Pirates > Ninjas > Tampa Bay Devil Rays

These fuckers are insane.

[Zekyl]

So you're saying they should have named themselves the Tampa Bay Sting Rays?

Why are there no teams called the Ninjas? We have the Pirates and the Bucs, the Vikings, the Cowboys, Blue Jackets, multiple Rangers, Mavericks, Warriors, Wizards, multiple Kings, Patriots, Titans, Raiders, Yankees
You mean to tell me there isn't room for a team called the Ninjas?

[MoTown]

Good call, Zek. We could probably dedicate an entire thread to team names that should happen.