300-Pound Eagle Ray Pins Woman On Boat In Florida

[Chastity]

300-Pound Eagle Ray Pins Woman On Boat In Florida



Dean Praetorius  Posted: 03/29/11 02:08 PM ET

Jenny Hausch never thought she'd know what it was like to get slammed by a 300-pound eagle ray.

Hausch, on vacation in Florida with her family, learned the feeling after an eagle ray accidentally jumped on board their boat, slamming her into the deck, reports CNN. The family was photographing the creatures at the time.

"These eagle rays, they were flying through the air," Kelly Klein of Two Chicks Charters, the captain of the boat, told CNN. "These giant things go out of the water and slam back down."

The ray was so heavy they were unable to pull it off her, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

    After the ray landed on Hausch, the family's screams summoned a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission team that was patrolling nearby. The officers waited for the ray to wear itself out before tying a rope around it and pulling it into the water, where it swam away, Dube said.

    But the fish left behind a souvenir more tactile than the memory of the encounter: a potentially lethal barb.

Hausch was lucky. In 2008 a woman had her neck broken by a ray in a similar situation, reports the Sentinel.

Wildlife officials told CNN that the ray that struck Hausch was about 8-feet across, and likely weighed 300 pounds.


WATCH (The report with photos from the Orlando Sentinel):

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/fl-leaping-ray-aboard-20110329,0,6327160.story

[Chastity]

So beautiful. The ray is an amazing creature.