A 10-year-old girl has stunned doctors in Australia after she survived being stung by the world's most venomous creature.
By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
Published: 7:00AM BST 27 Apr 2010
Rachael Shardlow was swimming upstream from the ocean mouth of Queensland's Calliope River when she was stung on her legs by a box jellyfish.
Her 13-year old brother pulled her onto the shore and she told him that she could not see or breathe. Moments later she fell unconscious with the tentacles still wrapped around her limbs.
The venom of the box jellyfish is so overpoweringly painful that victims often go in to shock and drown or die of heart failure before reaching shore.
There is no effective antivenom for its sting, which attacks the heart, nervous system and skin, inducing shooting muscle pain, vomiting and a rapid rise in blood pressure.
But Rachael survived.
Jamie Seymour, Zoology and tropical ecology associate professor at James Cook University, said her recovery after such an extensive sting was unheard of.
"I don't know of anybody in the entire literature where we've studied this where someone has had such an extensive sting that has survived," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"When I first saw the pictures of the injuries I just went, 'you know to be honest, this kid should not be alive'. I mean they are horrific.
"Usually when you see people who have been stung by box jellyfish with that number of tentacle contacts on their body, it's usually in a morgue."
Rachael's father, Geoff Shardlow, said his daughter had suffered short-term memory loss and scarring, but was otherwise in good health.
"We've noticed a small amount of short-term memory loss, like riding a pushbike to school and forgetting she's taken a pushbike," he said.
"The greatest fear was actual brain damage [but] her cognitive skills and memory tests were all fine."
Scores of beaches in Queensland and the Northern Territory are closed each year due to box jellyfish, which are common in Australia's northeast waters during the wet season from October to April.
Some beaches are netted to prevent stings, but snorkellers on the Great Barrier Reef are also advised to wear protective full-body stinger suits.
The jellyfish have shells measuring 20cms long, with up to 15 tentacles trailing 3 metres behind.
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