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30-year-old Australian surfer survives near fatal box jellyfish sting in Fiji. His ordeal highlights the extreme danger of these highly venomous marine animals.
Caribbean box jellyfish (Image: AFP)
A trip to Fiji for surfing turned tragic for an Australian surfer when he was attacked by a highly venomous jellyfish, leaving him fighting for life.
Guy Rowles, 30-year-old, was paddling on his board last week when he suddenly felt a sting on his arm.
“And it just straight away just was so intense. Like my arm was on fire,” he told SkyNews.com.au. “Just felt like someone poured like hot oil on my arm and just they weren’t stopping. It was gnarly.”
However, this was not the first time for Rowles to have been stung. According to skynewshe was previously been stung by Bluebottle. He said the pain this time continued to get worse.
Rowles said after the incident he informed his local guide that he had been stung by something and that the pain was “burning”.
That’s when his guide told him: “Get to the boat. That’s a box jellyfish.”
“I could feel my chest was already like starting to squeeze and like I was feeling a bit light-headed to begin with as I was paddling over and then when that hit me, I don’t know … I was just like fight or flight,” he said.
He further said he had started to sweat and was struggling to breathe while being transferred to the mainland, which was 40 minutes by boat.
“I just looked at my dad after a while and I couldn’t really breathe, it was like breathing through a straw, and I was going, “F*** dad, am I going to die?” Rowles said. “It just felt like my heart was going a thousand miles an hour and my chest was just f***ing caving in. It was so hectic.”
After reaching the hospital, he recalled, he said: “I remember looking at one of the doctors’ eyes when like I told him, I was like, ‘oh I got stung’, and then the doctor was like ‘yeah, it’s a box jelly fish we think’. And then like the nurse’s eyes just went white,” he said.
He was released after being under observation for four hours.
How Dangerous Are Box Jellyfish?
The Australian box jellyfish is considered the most venomous marine animal.
Box jellyfish, named for their body shape, have tentacles covered in biological booby traps known as nematocysts – tiny darts loaded with poison. They have clusters of eyes on each side of the box. Their speed and vision leads some researchers to believe that box jellyfish actively hunt their prey, mainly shrimp and small fish, National Ocean Service state.
According to Australian Geographic, people can die within few minutes of having significant contact with a box jellyfish if antivenom isn’t administered.
“No other venomous animal in Australia has a more deadly record than the box jellyfish,” the publication’s fact file on the species stated.
April 21, 2026, 10:19 PM IST
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