Weird News

[ZenGum]

Sharks! Crocs! venomous jellyfish!

Nope, just a #$%& garfish stabbing someone in the ear.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/n...-1226542388183

Julie Fison, 46, was swimming chest-deep at Port Douglas [Far North Queensland, north of Cairns; ZG] in September when the garfish leapt up and plunged a 2.5cm barb into her eardrum.

Mrs Fison, a children's adventure book writer, is still recovering from surgery.

"It was excruciating - it hit me hard enough in the head to make me collapse and bleed out of my ear," the mother of two said.

She was left with facial palsy - unable to smile or blink on one side of her face - for more than a month after the barb perforated the eardrum and penetrated a facial nerve near her brain.

It took three hours of surgery at Cairns Base Hospital to remove the barb and she has since made numerous trips to ear specialists, physio sessions, an ophthamologist and now a speech therapist - and yet she still suffers hearing loss in her left ear.