Sorry that your little guy had to deal with that. I know these things sting like a mother****er. They are amazing though as they’re composed of seven unique organisms. At least you could get him to the hospital. When I was a kid, parental care for stings involved suggestions to urinate on it, putting tobacco on it and if one is available, putting a steak on it.
I once took a group of University of Minnesota Architecture students down to Surfside Beach, Tx to help rebuild houses after a hurricane. We had. Bbq on the beach and one of the students picks up one of those and showed it to me. Luckily for them she was holding it by the sail and said “pretty!” I told her in my firmest voice possible “put that down right now and back away”. This wasn’t a little boy but a 20 year old woman.
I got stung by a jellyfish in Australia and the lifeguard said take a hot shower and it feel much better.
I’ll tag on to this and say that while a healthy fear of pain is good, experiencing enough pain when you’re young can build resilience as an adult. I had terrible earaches as a toddler then terrible migraines until I hit puberty. Compared to that, I’m not really afraid of pain. Cautious, yes, but a decent chance of pain doesn’t stop me from doing something. I’m the go-to wasp/bee killer in the house and rough, painful sports like rugby are just fun to me.
Yeah, sterner stuff down under where everything will kill you with one bite and birds like magpies will bloody your head just from walking close to their nest.
As far as I know (he was with my wife and was running a bit ahead of her, so she couldn't stop him) he only touched the sail, but it was still very painful. I assume that parts of the tentacles got onto the sail or something. Would have probably been worse if he had touched the tentacles directly.
My grandfather apparently had an even worth experience in the Baltic sea, when a jellyfish somehow got into his swimming trunks...
****ing hell! I knew a girl in HS that had the tentacles wrapped around her leg. It looked like she had been whipped the first couple of days after. Nasty ****. Tangentially, I was talking to a guy who tried a Carolina Reaper pepper and coughed and the pepper got stuck in his nasal cavity. He said it was the worst experience of his life, he was snorting milk trying to get it out, lol
I remember that and the moms scrubbing kids' feet with baby oil to get the tar off. Oh, and if you think jellyfish are painful, try a stingray.
