They say that a ‘bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work’, but in this case I’m almost certain the dude getting speared in the leg by a 500-pound blue marlin would have rather been at work than in danger of losing his ability to walk. I’ve come really, really close to having fishing hooks go through my fingers or ears (when fly fishing) on many occasions, and I’ve been face-to-face with sharks more times than I can count while spearfishing or diving, but I’ve NEVER come anywhere close to getting speared by a billfish.
Angler Russell Ching was fishing off of Oahu when all hell broke loose and he nearly lost his ability to walk after fighting a 500-pound marlin for an hour and once getting the fish boat side and pulling it in the weight of the fish took over and all 500-pounds of bacteria-ridden marlin went sliding right into his leg.
Footage of this insane encounter was captured by the captain, get ready to have your mind hole below:
Just consider for a moment what it’d be like to have 500-pounds of anything fall on top of you, then consider it being the jagged bill of a blue marlin that’s covered in nasty bacteria from the sea, and then imagine it being a sword that’s also trying to crush the bones within your leg. That’s what angler Russell Ching was forced to contend with.
Russell Ching and a few friends were fishing about 25 miles off Kaneohe when they hooked the fish.
Ching says they fought it for about an hour and a half before pulling it onto the boat.
By then, the marlin was dead. But little did they know, another battle was about to begin.
“As we dragged it in, all that weight started to slip and I was kind of in a bad position and it just went through my leg,” Ching said.
Home video shows the marlin’s bill going in point-first.
“When it first went in, I couldn’t believe how easy it went into my leg. I mean, it was like a hot knife through butter,” Ching said.
Ching says the spear pinned him to the inside of the boat, and he was trapped under the weight of the fish, which was more than 500 pounds.
“After that, I think shock set in and then it felt like somebody kicked me in the shin and that’s what it felt like the whole time,” he said. “I was always concerned about more than when they were alive, but this one was dead weight and the shifting weight puts it right in my leg which is, I couldn’t believe it, you know.”
Although he had the spear in his leg, luck was on his side. It sliced through cleanly, missing all major arteries.
Lucky wasn’t entirely on Ching’s side though, they were fishing over two hours from shore (25+ miles), and he was worried about loss of blood. Thankfully though the bill of the fish sticking into his leg actually stopped a great deal of blood from leaking out as the fishermen hauled ass back to shore where Ching was treated for his gruesome wounds. This is somewhat reminiscent of a famous Hawaiian fisherman who died earlier this year after being speared in the heart by a swordfish while spearfishing in the local harbor.
For more on this story you can follow that link above to KHON2!