We weighed anchor early and started to retrace our tracks out of Marine Stadium. Destination: Palm Beach and Fort Worth.
We got to Fort Worth early evening, ate dinner and everybody started to chill for the evening. Sam & Shawn decided to fish and caught a few cat fish.
After a handful of fish, Sam pulled an unknown fish out. Shawn jumped into action to help Sam take the fish off…and, while Shawn was gripping it, it started to puff-up. Yikes! The fish was ultimately removed and thrown back, but then we began to remember. Aren’t blow/puffer fish poisonous?
Well, after about 30 minutes of surfing the web, we determined that yes, many species are poisonous…in fact, some are significantly more poisonous than arsenic! So, which fish did he touch? Shawn was saying that he could feel where he had touched the blowfish’s spikes but wasn’t in significant pain…what to do.
Fortunately, we were close to an emergency room. Since some websites suggested that even touching the skin of a blowfish could be fatal, I decided to go with Sam and Shawn to the emergency room. Ken took us over and we climbed over a concrete lookout near Lake Worth, only to find a person sleeping on the ground next to his motorcycle. Carefully stepping around him, we walked a few blocks to the Emergency room.
Shawn asked the receptionist whether she felt they should be seen…but had no ideas. “Do you want to see a Doctor?” Since death from this poison can happen 1-4 hours after being stung (so we read) and can result in respiratory paralysis, we decided to hang out for an hour outside the Emergency room before calling Ken to pick us back up. What a night.
