Sea Urchin

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I promise that this story is not all bad, actually for the most part, it was an incredible couple of days. I had talked to an old friend named Derek about a week or two ago, he mentioned that he had some other friends coming from our hometown to come visit him, he lives in San Jose now. I left him a message on his cell phone, and he traced the number back to me, so we called each other a few times but never made any firm plans. I got done with a canopy tour on Thursday morning and was sitting at the bar at my work having a beer with the clients when the phone rang. It was Derek, and he said he was in the harbor, but I could not see his boat. I started waiving from my barstool and sure enough the boat was right underneath me in the bay! There were five of them and one of me, and we took the long walk across the bay down the beach and found a cheap little place for everybody to stay. We finally got all settled in and decided to head back down to the beach and take a dip and perhaps have a beer or two. It was one of those days that you read about in a book or maybe just see in postcards-hot sun beating down on you, the Pacific splashing calmly on a white sandy beach, all that good stuff. Everyone was loving the spot, the waves were calm and the water was warm as always. I came out of the water and found one of the visitors, Meg, in horrible pain. She said she had been stung by something, but was not sure what it was. Judging by the marking on the bottom of her foot, we judged that it was probably the spike from a sea urchin or the sting of a stingray. As time passed, the pain got more and more intense and widespread. Someone had the bright idea of urinating on the wound, since we reasoned that it worked on jellyfish stings. That did nothing for the pain but certainly lightened the mood for everyone. Meg was still in intense pain, but unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. By dinner time, she was mumbling incoherently and shaking quite violently. All color in her face was gone, and she had developed a rash on her arms and legs. We were obviously very concerned, but did not know what to do. Drake Bay does not have police or doctors or anything like that, you are pretty much on your own. I walked to my friend Hector's house, who is the divemaster, hoping he would have some advice. He knew of a doctor, but he was nowhere to be found. I frantically asked every local I came across until we heard of a nurse that lived behind the ice cream stand on the beach(odd, I know). She came with us and upon inspection informed us that Meg needed medical treatment immediately. We could not even communicate with her at this point, she had become unresponsive and nearly unconscious. We found my taxi friend Pistoleto, who rushed us through the back roads to a small clinic that we were luckily able to find a key to. The nurse lady shot Meg up with some anti venom and an IV drip, and she improved within an hour or so. Apparently she had an accute reaction to the sting and had gone into shock. The nurse kept coming back to check on her at odd hours of the night, what a savior she was.
Meg woke up feeling much much better, so we decided to take a beach adventure as we call it. My buddy Leo that works with my at the resort captained a boat for us, taking us about 30 minutes south and dropped a few of us in the water at the primo surf spot, then took the rest of us to a pristine snorkeling beach. It was a great afternoon, kickin it with friends from the hometown, chillin in the shade of palm trees, snorkeling out to the small islands every hour or so. We got back in the boat and headed back, stopping at Rio Claro to pick up the 3 surfers. I jumped in and grabbed Alexis' board, hoping to catch one wave before we went home while the others waited. Luck was definitely on my side, not 10 minutes after jumping in, a very decent set rolled in. I have never had much luck at Rio Claro, it is a little too big for my liking. I somehow lucked out and caught on of the larger waves of my life, then paddled back out to the boat and called it a day. Perfect ending to a perfect day...

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Comments

[anonymous]

what a crazy story!!! miss ya