Not content to let ‘Florida Man’ hog all the headlines this week, a fish in Florida disrupted a firefighter training exercise when it leapt from the water and lodged it’s pointy sword of a snout 1.5 inches into the head of a man participating in the training exercise. The fish, a ballyhoo (pictured above), lodged itself an inch and a half into the man’s head where his neck meets the base of his skull. The Holley-Navarre firefighter was taken to the Gulf Breeze Baptist Hospital in Gulf Breeze, Florida where the 1.5-inch sword/snout of the ballyhoo was removed from his skull.
If you’re not familiar with ballyhoo it’s a very common bait fish in Florida, often congregating in huge schools making them easy for fishermen to catch in mass and use as bait to catch larger sport fish like Sailfish and Tuna (blackfin or yellowfin tuna). Here’s another look at the ballyhoo species of fish so you have a clearer understanding of just what the snout is that was lodged nearly two inches into this firefighter’s head:
NAVARRE — A Holley-Navarre firefighter was injured Friday morning when he was stabbed by a fish.
The firefighter was in Santa Rosa Sound about 10:30 a.m. practicing water rescues with other firefighters and lifeguards, according to Howie Rounsaville, battalion chief for the Holley-Navarre Fire Department.
They believe a personal watercraft used for the training startled a ballyhoo fish, which began to jump across the water and struck the firefighter in the back of the head.
The spiny snout of the fish stuck about 1 1/2 inches deep in the crease where the head meets the neck, Rounsaville said.
The firefighter was taken to Gulf Breeze Baptist Hospital, where the snout was extracted from his neck.
He was expected to be back at work in a couple days, Rounsaville said.
I mentioned before that ballyhoo is an extremely popular bait fish used to catch large game fish in the state of Florida. If you’re interested in learning more about fishing with ballyhoo as bait you can check out this video on how to rig ballyhoo for fishing:
This fish stabbing comes on the heels of a Monday that was CHOCK FULL of completely asinine WTFlorida headlines including the following:
Man In Florida Sentenced to 30 Months In Prison For Having Sex On The Beach
and
As a born and raised Floridian I have to admit I’m both pleased and saddened to see my home state back in the news. It seemed like for a few months recently Florida was losing its moniker as the weirdest state in the nation, the state that’s home to a completely over-the-top daily news cycle. But in the past few weeks all that’s changed, and the Sunshine State is once again pumping out unbelievable ‘WTFlorida’ news as fast and frequent as we’ve ever seen. That said, I’d rather not see ‘teacher sex’ headlines coming out of my beloved home state. As for the fireman, it’s great to know that he’s expected to make a full recover and that he’ll be back to work in no time at all!
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