I'm jeremy wade,
Explorer, biologist,
And aquatic detective.
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!
For 30 years,
I've been investigating underwater mysteries,
Tracking down fresh and saltwater killers
In some of the most remote corners of the world.
And now in the tropical waters of southeast asia,
Reports are surfacing of a mystery creature
That's impaling swimmers and fishermen,
Causing gruesome injuries
And even death.
The lethal stab wounds
And the bizarre ways in which they happened
Are like nothing i've ever seen.
Were the victims just in the wrong place
At the wrong time?
Or do these waters conceal a coral-Reef killer?
Go! Go!
— captions by vitac — www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Over the years, i've come across
All sorts of attacks on humans
In fresh and saltwater.
Victims lacerated by sharp-Toothed monsters
Like sharks,
Piranhas, and barracudas,
Corpses crushed, suffocated, and drowned
By anacondas and crocodiles,
Casualties slashed open
By serrated swordfish.
But this is something very different.
A report from indonesia has really caught my attention.
Just a few months ago,
A woman on vacation was snorkeling
On the coral reef
When she was stabbed and killed
By an unseen assailant.
And the more i look into this case,
The more i uncover.
Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere
In southeast asia,
Aquatic attacks by a mystery creature.
Each time, the victim is impaled,
Left with a deep stab wound,
And the end result is serious injury,
Paralysis or death.
This new case could be my opportunity
To identify and find a killer
That's stalking the reefs of an entire region.
It happened off the coast of sulawesi,
One of the largest of indonesia's 17,000 islands.
This corner of the globe is new to me.
I make a 7,500-Mile journey
Into the heart of equatorial asia.
It would be easy to be taken in by the beauty,
But i'm here to find a killer.
My destination is donggala,
A fishing community on the northwest coast
That in season, attracts divers and tourists,
Drawn to its beaches
And pristine reef.
Today, the dusty streets are eerily silent.
This place really is the archetypal tourist paradise.
You've got sunshine all year round,
Beautiful sandy beach, palm trees,
And out there is a coral reef
Just crying out to be snorkeled.
But a sinister shadow
Is lying over this scene,
And there's a very good chance
That the killer is still out there.
A killer in the coral is bad for business,
And for some of the beach merchants,
It would be best forgotten.
My persistence eventually gets me directed to abu bakhar,
Who was snorkeling here on the day
The most recent victim was attacked.
Can you start by telling me what exactly you saw?
He tells me, "it was the new-Year holiday.
The beach was packed with people
Enjoying the warm waters."
All of a sudden,
He heard screaming and shouting.
A young woman snorkeler had been attacked.
So you were on the beach, and people were saying,
"it's some kind of fish." but they don't know what kind.
Yeah.
He directs me towards aisha,
Who rented a snorkel and mask to the victim.
So you heard some kind of shout, some kind of noise?
And you actually went to see what had happened,
To see if you could help? - Yeah.
What did people imagine had happened,
Or what did they see?
She recalls seeing blood
Running from the woman's head.
The victim was carried from the beach
And rushed to hospital.
Now, your head is a pretty solid structure.
It has to be.
The main purpose of the skull is to protect the brain,
So most of this is thick bone.
There are a few weak points,
Principally the eye sockets,
But the victim would've been wearing one of these.
I know that because i spoke
To the woman who hired it to her.
So her eyes would've been protected.
The thing is, to penetrate this or this,
You're going to need serious force,
Serious momentum, something seriously sharp,
All of which suggests that the perpetrator was
A large powerful fish.
No one i spoke to saw the attacker.
I have no idea what potential killers
Could live in these waters,
So close to swimmers.
If i just arrived at this place
Without knowing very much about happened here,
I'd be quite looking forward to getting in
And having a snorkel around on top of the coral,
But i have to say that i'm not totally relaxed
About getting in the water.
Right now,
I'm as vulnerable as the woman who was killed.
I'm not seeing anything over a few inches long,
And none of these fish has the teeth or other weaponry
To smash a hole in someone's head.
There's certainly lots of fish out there,
But basically just small colorful aquarium fish, really,
Exactly what you'd expect to see on a tropical coral reef.
I've drawn a blank underwater,
So i decide to head to the port
And speak to the people who know these waters best —
The local fishermen.
They tell me this is not the only attack
That's happened in the area.
I'm sent to see an old fisherman,
Known as papa chuchu.
Everybody here tells me you were attacked.
Can you tell me, how did that happen?
He was out on a small boat
Called a sampan,
Fishing off the reef with just a handline.
Papa chuchu was pulling up tuna
When, all of a sudden,
His boat was struck from beneath
By a big marlin.
So you're fishing for tuna,
And this marlin just came from nowhere?
The force of the marlin smashed the sampan in half...
And worse.
As he hit the water, papa chuchu realized
That he'd been impaled by the fish's spear-Like bill.
He had to wrench it out of his bottom
Before other fishermen could haul him to safety.
You still have a scar?
Do you still have a mark?
Oh, in here?
In there...
- Yeah. - ... And out here?
Right.
Well, there are definitely marlin in these waters here,
As papa chuchu knows only too well,
And what makes them potentially so dangerous is this.
You've got this hard, elongated, pointed bill,
And behind that, you've got a lot of mass.
I mean, some species,
You're taking up to over 1,000 pounds,
So you can have an awful lot of energy
Concentrated on a fairly small point,
And in that situation,
If you happen to get in the way of that,
That can end very badly.
But marlin are predominantly an open-Water fish.
Could they really be a threat to swimmers on a beach?
I've heard that one type of marlin
Can frequent shallow water,
But are they here?
To find out, i enlist the help
Of a renowned game fisherman,
Mr. Huang.
This is all marlin?
Marlin.
He catches prize-Winning marlin on nothing but a handline
And relishes the challenge
Of this kind of fishing,
Hand-To-Hand combat
Takes the rod out of the equation.
I've fished marlin before,
But that's with rod and reel.
What we're doing here is... No rods.
This is basically a handline.
We've got outriggers to keep the line spread,
And we'll have the lures skipping behind the boat.
What's going to be interesting is actually getting a fish in
On that and a pair of gloves.
A handline transmits a fish's strength
In the most direct way possible.
With no rod and reel to help me,
There will be just a thin line between me
And a very powerful running fish.
So, um, ready.
Just in case of — well, waiting but also watching.
Because it's possible we might see something
In the moments before one of the lures is taken.
Marlin hits their prey on the move.
So we keep the boat at a fast, steady speed.
For several hours there's nothing.
In this heat, concentration becomes a challenge.
But then...
- Oh! - That's good.
Lots of hits...
- Yes! Yes! Yes! Go!
I'm in indonesia,
Investigating a bizarre case
Of death by impalement.
I'm out in blue water,
Fishing for my first suspect,
The marlin,
And something big has taken my lure.
- Yes! Yes! Yes! Go!
- Oh, it's off. It's off.
It's off. It's off. It's off. It's off. Look.
Marlin.
Yeah that was the fish. That was the fish. That was a big fish.
I don't know what went wrong there.
If we didn't accelerate quick enough or what.
When i pull the line in, i see the lure has gone.
Most likely the knot securing it failed.
In theory, that's unbreakable.
I felt that around my hands. We accelerated.
Basically did everything right,
But that shouldn't have happened.
- It's just jumped out there.
Look it. There he goes. There he goes.
There he goes. There he goes. There he goes.
So that is a — that's an equipment failure
I think that goes under.
Coming so close is frustrating.
But at least i know that marlin are here.
Now i need to know which species.
So i get a line back in the water,
And eventually we get another chance.
We gun the throttle to set the hook.
There's just a thin handline and a pair of gloves
Between me and this monster fish.
Once i'm sure the fish is hooked,
We stop the engines.
That's it!
It's going down. It's going down, i think.
We've seen this fish out of the water.
It's a sizable fish.
It's a couple hundred pounds, i'd say, easily.
This powerful fish is making me question
My decision to shun rod and reel.
Hauling it in is backbreaking work,
And the line is starting to cut through my gloves.
I'm getting about...
A yard of line every...
Two-Handed pull.
I've not been counting, but i'm guessing this took
A good 200 yards or so off.
I had to let the fish run to avoid snapping the line,
But now i have to expend energy
To pull all this line back in.
The sun is hot,
And my arm and back muscles are burning.
I've almost got the marlin to the boat,
But this is no time to relax.
Many fish can be unpredictable to the last,
Surprising you with a final burst of energy.
This has come off.
- No. - It's just come off.
I can't quite believe it.
At the very last moment of an epic hour-Long battle,
The fish has managed to spit the hook.
But all is not lost
Because i got an i.D.
It looked like a black marlin.
I saw that thing completely propel itself
Out of the water, 8 or 9 foot long,
And if i'm still in any doubt,
Can these things be dangerous, potentially harmful to people,
Well, seeing that thing move at speed...
You know,
Absolutely.
Unlike many open-Water predators,
Black marlin are known to come close to shore to feed,
So i have a suspect,
But i also have some doubts.
Back on dry land,
I return to the scene of the crime.
- Hi. - Do you work here?
This time, i come across dive instructor nazrun.
Were you here on the day
When the woman is injured on the beach here?
Where did they bring her out?
Yeah.
So this beach? - Yeah.
You ever see marlin here?
But this close, no?
So do you think it was any possibility
That marlin could cause this?
Yes.
So if it was a marlin,
The injury would be much, much bigger?
The marlin may have the weaponry,
But i can't place it at the scene of the crime.
So he's absolutely adamant
That it wasn't a marlin.
He's never seen a marlin anywhere near this beach.
The other thing he said is,
"even a small marlin is going to cause
Much more visible damage if it hits you in the head,"
So that means i'm looking for something else.
There's something out there in the shallows
As dangerous as a marlin,
And i need to find it.
I'm in indonesia,
Investigating the gruesome death
Of a snorkeler just yards from the beach.
With no clear suspects,
I head to the hospital where the victim was treated.
I know that the woman was still alive
When she was brought to this hospital here.
I know that she had some kind of injury to head,
But other than that, at the moment,
I don't really know anything else.
Perhaps the nature of her injuries
Will bring me closer to identifying the killer.
I manage to track down the nurse who treated her.
Lily nosanti has agreed to talk to me
About the wounds that she treated.
Can you describe the condition of the patient to me
When you first saw her?
She tells me the woman
Had a bandage over her eye
When she was first brought in
And that the stab wound underneath
Went directly through her eyeball.
This is new information,
But something doesn't add up.
How could her eye have been penetrated
If she was wearing a snorkeling mask?
But if she is injured in the eye,
I would expect pieces of plastic also
To cause injuries.
What the nurse now tells me
Could be a key detail.
Just moments before the attack,
The woman's husband had called out to her,
Beckoning her back to the beach.
She lifted her head above the water to respond
And in doing so, removed her mask,
Exposing her eyes.
That actually really opens things up a lot.
It does necessarily mean that it was
A large powerful animal
That can fracture the skull, that i'm looking for.
It could well be something considerably smaller.
I may not be looking for a marlin-Sized fish
After all.
The nurse tells me that the physician
Who treated the woman is here too,
So i ask dr. Andy fasihi
About his initial assessment of the patient.
The fact that it did turn out to be fatal,
Did you have any idea why, you know,
What could have caused it?
Right, okay.
So it could've just been mechanical damage
But going deeper than just the eye socket,
Or you say possibly some toxin.
Okay.
There was no autopsy,
So an exact cause of death was not established,
But i know of one venomous possibility
That lives in these waters —
The stingray.
Stingrays are found in both fresh and saltwater
And are known to bury themselves
In sand as camouflage.
This makes them a potential menace underfoot
On beaches like the one where the attack took place.
But they can also attack while swimming,
Striking with lightning blows if they feel threatened,
And swimmers have fallen victim,
Including, most famously,
The tv naturalist steve irwin in 2006.
Given what i now know about the victim's wounds,
I'd like a closer look at the kind of stingray found
In these waters,
And a discarded catch, given to me by a fisherman,
Presents that opportunity.
They don't really eat stingray here,
But they do capture them, occasionally,
And someone's caught this,
But the line's still coming out the mouth here.
I've still got to be a little bit careful with this
Even though it's dead, because that spine
Is still sharp and pointed.
And the vemon is still going to be active.
A lot of sting rays are actually quite drab colored
But some are pretty bright.
And this one really pretty, it has bright blue all over it.
In body plan, it's pretty much generic stingray —
It has this flattened disk with the tail behind it,
Big eyes here and these holes behind the eyes —
That's where it takes in the water to pass over the gills,
If it did what normal fish do,
Which is take the water in through the mouth,
Because it's flat to the bottom,
It's just gonna get a mouthful, a gillsful, of sand
And mud and all sorts of rubbish.
So clean water comes in here, passes over the gills,
And then passes out the gill slits here.
This is the mouth — there are teeth but they're very small.
They're not sharp teeth but quite powerful jaws
With sort of crushing pads.
As for the actual spine though, there's actually two.
There's one long one and one short one.
The main spine there,
That is about...
It's a good 2 inches long.
So in terms of that injury to the snorkeler...
I mean, the first thing to say is that,
With stingrays, normally,
The injury is to the foot, to the ankle,
If you're really unlucky, to the abdomen.
For one to strike you in the face,
It's not impossible,
But i think that would be very, very unlikely.
But in terms of the actual nature and shape of the weapon,
I think we are looking at something
Very, very similar to that.
If it was one of these spines
That stabbed the woman through the eye,
Then venom could've been the cause of death.
So is the stingray the killer i'm looking for?
To further this line of inquiry,
I head to sam ratulangi university
To track down an expert.
Professor jani kusan is a marine biologist
And an authority on aquatic stings.
I do have a picture, which is rather shocking.
But if you...
I show the professor a photograph
Of the victim's wound
That i've been asked not to broadcast.
Ugh!
Yeah.
The appearance of the wound, you're saying,
Would probably be different. Very different.
It would be more discolored because of the —
Yes. Yes.
Enzymes contained in stingray venom
Would kill tissue cells,
Leading to discoloration.
But this wound doesn't show that.
So what could've caused it?
I'm baffled by this case.
The most likely culprits
Aren't holding up to scrutiny.
But i'm now hearing about
Other mysterious stabbing attacks...
In a remote community
On the other side of the island.
This guy's actually been hit twice.
It actually sunk his boat.
I'm wondering if it has a link.
This time, it was fatal.
My investigation
Into the gruesome death of a snorkeler
Off the coast of sulawesi, indonesia,
Has taken a new turn.
Reports have reached me of similar attacks
On a remote community
In the waters off the main island —
A place rarely visited by outsiders.
Sampela is no ordinary fishing village.
It's a stilted city constructed directly over the reef
And completely cut off from the mainland.
It's home to the bajau people,
Commonly known as sea gypsies,
Who moved here more than 60 years ago
After centuries living a hard nomadic existence
In wooden boats on the open ocean.
Bajau daily life still revolves around the sea.
I'm told this spate of bloody attacks
In their watery backyard
Has sent a wave of terror through the community.
I meet with local fishermen
To hear their stories firsthand.
I'm jeremy.
I hear you have a story about a fish,
A fish that attacked you.
This man was out at night in his canoe
When, all of a sudden, a fish leapt from the water
And stabbed him in the thigh.
So this happened to you at night, malam?
Yes, sir.
This is significant.
I'm talking to someone who actually saw what attacked him.
What was the fish that did this?
Um... Ikan?
Ikan sori.
Sori?
Sori fish?
It's not a name i recognize,
But he tells me that it was
Roughly the length of his forearm.
So this kind of size?
Other fishermen show me evidence of similar attacks.
So where did they hit?
And the second time was...
This guy's actually been hit twice.
And so what, originally,
Sounded like an isolated incident...
Just talking to people in this village,
It's not an uncommon occurrence.
And it was nighttime? Malam?
Malam.
Again and again,
I hear of attacks by these fish.
The stabbing sounds similar
To that of the snorkeler in donggala...
But she was attacked in the daytime,
And these all occurred at night.
I'm picking up what feels as if it's significant information.
I've got a name. They call this fish ikan sori.
It means sori fish.
Now, i don't know what that is,
But this is not a fish that bites.
It's a fish that stabs,
And it does that
When it jumps out of the water.
They don't sound like big fish,
But it appears the injuries they cause
Can prove fatal.
Like the piranha, small can be dangerous.
I meet nuhari,
Whose brother, halican, was killed
By one of these sori fish.
Can you tell me exactly what happened to your brother?
He tells me his brother
Was out fishing one night with his cousin.
Their boats were side-By-Side,
And they had just lit their lanterns...
When a sori fish jumped out of the water,
Hitting halican in the ribs
And knocking him into the water.
His cousin pulled him out
And paddled him back to the village,
Where they looked at the wound.
Apparently, it wasn't a very big wound.
It wasn't bleeding a lot, and he wasn't in a lot of pain,
But about an hour after arriving in the village,
He died.
Did they see how big this was?
Was this a big sori fish?
He estimates that the fish
Was around 3 feet in length.
So certain details are different,
But otherwise,
This very much fits the pattern.
It was nighttime,
And this fish jumped out of the water,
And it inflicted a stab wound.
One other difference in this case —
This time, it was fatal.
One other thing strikes me.
All of these attacks occurred
After the fishermen had lit their lanterns.
I've come across nighttime collisions
With jumping fish before.
In nicaragua,
Tarpon jump when they're spooked by light.
Other predators attack baitfish,
Drawn in by the light.
So is light the trigger in sampela?
I'm ready to see what this fish is,
This sori fish, and what i've done,
I've arranged to meet a couple of fishermen tonight.
Obviously, i'm very anxious
Not to end up in the firing line myself.
Normally,
If there's a killer in the water,
I feel fairly safe when i'm in a boat,
But this is one occasion when,
Potentially,
I'm not going to be.
We paddle out into the dark ocean
In the bajau's handmade wooden canoes.
These little boats offer minimal protection
From the elements...
Or from anything leaping out of the water.
I'm hoping this isn't going to make me a target.
As i pan my flashlight across the surface,
I'm hoping to provoke a response
From whatever is out there.
There, there, there, there, there!
There, there, there, there!
I'm on the water with indonesian sea gypsies
To find out if bright lights at night
Can turn the mysterious sori fish
Into a lethal leaping spear.
Oh!
There, there, there, there,
There, there, there, there, there.
I'm seeing stuff in the distance.
There were small fish jumping out of the water
When the light hits.
The fish are reacting to the light,
But they're heading away, not towards me.
Looks like it's sort of a panic reaction, i think.
When fish are alarmed,
They just take off, and sometimes,
That takes them out of the water.
But then, i see something bigger.
There's something there,
There was something there. It jumped.
It was an arc, and it was about 6 foot
Between where it came out of the water
And where it went back in.
It was a long, slender leaping fish,
And it fits the description of the sori fish
Held responsible for the deadly attacks here.
I need a closer look.
Nearby, some bajau fishermen
Hang out a long gill net.
When the circle is closed,
They will spook the fish into it.
So that's the net paid out,
It's gone out and formed a circle.
And up to this point, we've been in stealth mode.
But now, this is the moment apparently
When they start making a bit of noise,
Banging the side of the boat,
And crucially also lighting the lanterns.
And this is when the fish can start jumping.
Normally fish jumping, unless they're very big,
Is not a problem.
But here, from what i've been hearing,
There was this other fish, this sori fish,
Which it's not an enormous fish, but being hit by one of those
Flying through the air can be fatal.
So this is a moment of mixed emotions —
Curiosity to see what we get inside the net,
But the same amount of trepidation as well.
We've got something in the net here.
It's not a fish,
But this could be even more dangerous.
It's a sea snake.
It's really characteristic of a banded krait.
This is one of the most venomous snakes there is,
And it's about a foot behind me,
And i'm in a boat that is just so tippy.
I'm feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
He's tearing the mesh of the net.
I think he's gonna try and extract it.
I'm looking for one potential killer,
That launches itself into the air.
So i'm a bit nervous about anything
Coming out of the water.
Also falling in the water at any stage.
Is something you really want to avoid.
Having seen one of the things that's in the water,
I must say i'm liking this particular situation
Less and less.
That's enough close calls
For one night.
But i got my first sighting of the fish
That appears to be responsible
For the deaths and injuries here,
And it could be the culprit
In the case of the stabbed snorkeler.
But i'm left with one nagging question —
How does a fish reacting to lantern light at night
Connect to an attack that happened in broad daylight?
Back on the main island,
There's been a development.
Word has gotten out to the family
Of the snorkeling victim,
And they've invited me to join them
At a local restaurant.
Lina hermawan was 39
And the mother of two young boys.
Her husband, benny, and his cousin, thurly,
Were both at the beach the day lina was attacked.
Thurly tells me she was actually in the water with lina
When the tragedy happened.
After several hours snorkeling together,
They were finally heading back towards the shore.
Suddenly, two fish leapt clear of the water.
One narrowly missed the women.
The other struck lina in the face.
Then benny shows me an item from the scene
That he thinks might interest me —
Linda's necklace and earrings.
- So she was wearing this... - Yes.
At the time.
This is potentially a vital clue —
The missing link between night and day.
As sunlight sparkled off this jewelry,
Did it provoke a reaction from the fish,
Just as my flashlight did?
I remember a story in botswana
Where a tiger fish was attracted
By the shiny crucifix around a man's neck.
It's possible the fish that impaled lina
Was reacting in the same way,
Mistaking flashes of light from her jewelry
For potential prey.
If you're a predator,
You strike first and ask questions later.
Whatever the case,
Lina was extremely unlucky.
According to her husband,
The attack happened at 5:00 in the afternoon.
Reef fish can be habitual feeders,
So i'm returning to the beach at the same time of day
To see if i can find this coral killer.
Instead of actually fishing in the conventional way,
I'm thinking of doing a different kind of hunting.
I've seen the sori fish
That the sea gypsies hold responsible
For the attacks in sampela,
And i think it could be the culprit here, too.
To prove that, i first have to place it
At the scene of the crime
And get a positive i.D.
At first, all i see
Are the same innocent-Looking fish
I witnessed on my previous dive,
But then,
Something else flashes into view.
I'm on a reef off the coast of sulawesi, indonesia,
On the trail of a coral killer.
Out of the corner of my eye,
I catch sight of something
I've not seen in these waters before.
My underwater camera catches a streamlined fish
With a dagger-Like snout and a mouth full of teeth.
This looks like the fish
I saw out on the sampela reef,
The fish the sea gypsies call "sori."
In daylight, i can see that
It's what i know as a needlefish,
And it's clearly at home here,
On the reef where the snorkeler was struck.
The predatory needlefish can grow to 5 feet long,
And those elongated jaws hold as many as 200 teeth.
When closed,
Its jaws form a rigid and sharp point
Like the end of a dagger.
It's easy to imagine the damage
This fish could do traveling
At its top speed of 40 miles an hour.
I could be looking at lina's killer,
But the only way to know for certain
If that jaw could pierce a woman's eye socket
Is to get my hands on one.
But there's no way i'll capture this speed demon
Underwater.
The bony-Jawed needlefish is also tough to hook.
Oh, yes it is! It's a fish!
Here we go.
Ugh.
Ugh!
That's off.
I think, in a way, i might've been lucky
Just to keep it on that long.
The trouble is, they've got very bony jaws.
That didn't stay on.
With fishing time running out,
I decide to switch things up.
I change boats,
Getting myself lower to the water,
And employ a little island ingenuity.
What the locals do for this fish is they use this.
It's just a piece of rope that's been unpicked.
Something like a needlefish,
Lots of small teeth comes along, chomps onto that,
And those teeth just get tangled up
In all those strands.
Eventually,
Something strikes.
Okay! Stop, stop, stop, stop.
There's one on here. There's one on here.
Taking it very, very gently.
It's secured only by a tangle of fibers,
So bringing this fish in is a delicate operation.
I'm relying purely on tangle,
Not on hook hold.
This is a completely different way
Of playing a fish,
Just keeping enough tension.
That's a needlefish.
I can finally take a good look
At this fish's lethal business end.
Well, i've seen these in the water,
But to see this...
Close up...
It's really something very different.
Holding this needlefish
With its large light-Sensitive eyes,
It's easy to imagine how it could've been drawn
To lina's jewelry
And startled by the sampela fishermen's lanterns,
But i can't take my eyes off that long sharp jaw.
If you're a small fish, then the weapons
You have to worry about are those needle-Sharp teeth,
But if you're a person,
Like the snorkeler in the water,
Then it's not so much those teeth.
It's the whole snout that becomes the weapon,
And you just have a very, very...
Small point on the end,
And even something that size,
Moving at speed through the water,
That is almost like a dagger,
And there are numerous places in the body where,
If that went in just a couple of inches,
That could be fatal.
For me, this case is finally closed —
The end of one of my most unusual investigations.
Normally, when i'm looking for a fish
That can kill a person,
I'm looking for something big
But not always.
Sometimes, small is deadly,
And the needlefish is
A perfect example of this.
As always, this was a case of somebody
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time
And being almost unimaginably unlucky.
The chances
Of the same thing happening to you and me
Are almost nonexistent,
So no need
To keep away from the beach.
But knowing what i know now,
If i ever see shoals of small baitfish
Thronging the shallows,
Perhaps occasionally scattering
Or jumping out of the water
In response to some unseen threat,
Perhaps that's one time
Not to get in the water.