Sebastian Murphy, 6, looks at the Irukandji which stung him at Wellington Point. Photo: Supplied
An irukandji jellyfish that almost killed a six-year-old boy off Wellington Point has been identified as one of the most venomous ever found in Moreton Bay.
Bay View State School student Sebastian Murphy was taken to Lady Cilento Hospital after being stung on the leg in knee-deep water at the Point on New Year’s Eve.
His mother Raelene Murphy, 35 of Wellington Point, was also stung and taken by ambulance to Redland Hospital, where she was treated for severe chest pains and cramps.
Wellington Point’s Sebastian Murphy, 6, with mum Raelene, who were both stung by an irukandji morbakki fenneri. Sebastian lost consciousness and was hospitalised after being stung on New Year’s Eve. Photo: Supplied
Paramedics revived Sebastian on the way to hospital after he lost consciousness.
Ms Murphy said quick-thinking onlookers and staff from a nearby restaurant saved her son’s life.
They poured vinegar on Sebastian’s wounds and then packed ice around the welts, which helped to ease the pain.
Experts said the train track-like welts on Sebastian Murphy’s leg and hand resembled burns from the deadly box jellyfish.
Ms Murphy, who has always lived at Wellington Point and has been a regular at the beach since she was a child, said she was disappointed Redland City Council had not warned swimmers of the stingers.
She said the restaurant had helped people who had been stung five days before her son was bitten.
“My son nearly lost his life due to the council’s apathy, when a sign could, and should, have been erected and prevented this pain,” she said.
“It is only because of some extraordinarily compassionate people, patient ambulance paramedics and wonderful nurses and doctors, one who stayed two hours after his shift ended to check on the health of my boy, that my incredible son is sitting here with me today.”
Doctors were unable to immediately determine what animal bit the Murphys.
But train-track shaped welts, the severity of the chest pains and the grey colour of the tentacles, led those treating the pair to believe it was a juvenile box jellyfish.
A sample of the animal’s tentacles was sent to Royal Life Saving Society national medical adviser Professor John Pearn.
Professor Pearn worked in conjunction with world marine stinger expert Lisa-ann Gershwin, who identified the animal as an irukandji morbakka fenneri, the species she discovered in Moreton Bay and named.
The species is usually less venomous than other species of irukandji.
“The specimen that stung Sebastian was unusual and the second most potent I’ve ever seen,” Dr Gershwin said.
“Its stinging cells were definitively morbakka fenneri but the welts it caused were similar to those from the larger deadly box jellyfish, chironex fleckeri, which is why the sting was so painful.”
Dr Gershwin, who has developed a forecasting system for jellyfish infestations, will use the unusual Wellington Point findings in a paper she is writing on marine stingers.
The Wellington Point incident will be entered on a national marine stinger data base, along with the irukandji morbakki fenneri found in a Raby Bay canal last year and identified by Dr Gershwin.
Within hours of the council being notified of the incident, staff had cut short their holiday break to erect signs at Wellington Point alerting swimmers to the dangers in the water.
Mayor Karen Williams said council had never had evidence of the deadly box jellyfish chironex fleckeri in the city’s waters.
She sent her well wishes to the family and thanked the scientists for their help.
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 