iStockphoto / Gema Alvarez Fernandez
Fishing stories have always been synonymous with ‘tall tales’ and this one about a fisherman in Australia who was slapped in the face by a whale tail and knocked unconscious would certainly be chalked up to an embellished tale from the high seas if there weren’t witnesses and paramedics involved.
The incident occurred at about 9 am last Sunday near Tweeds Head which is on the Queensland-NSW border, just south of Gold Coast, Byron Bay, and Brisbane. A man in his 30s was out fishing with a friend, just the two of them, when a whale of an unknown species breached from the water and slapped the gentlemen in the face with his tail, knocking him unconscious and leaving him with no memory of the events.
First responder Scott Brown of the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) spoke with Australia’s ABC News about the incident. He called this an ‘extremely rare’ encounter which should be quite obvious. If there were whales leaping from the water every day around the world slapping fishermen in the face and knocking them out I think we would have heard about it by now, right?
Fisherman Slapped Unconscious By Whale Tail In Extremely Rare Encounter
Scott Brown said this was the first time in his career that he had ever heard about an incident like this. He characterized the incident as “just two guys having a morning fish, and then all of a sudden, a whale’s tail appeared, striking one in the head.”
Brown said it was surreal when they got the call to deliver medial attention, saying “you have a little bit of disbelief that it happened at first, but respond nonetheless, and when we got there, that’s what we found had happened.”
After first responders arrived on the scene the man was taken to a nearby hospital. He was knocked unconscious after being slapped by the whale tail and later had no recollection of the incident.
The whale species remains unconfirmed but it was suspected to be a humpback whale which migrate in great numbers through that coast of Australia this time of year.
First responders issued a warning for everyone to exercise caution this time of year. It’s not everyday a fisherman is slapped by a whale but with many whales in the water the chances of a boat hitting one are elevated so they are askint for boaters to be vigilant.
This incident of the fisherman getting slapped by a whale is somewhat reminiscent of another incident that happened stateside last month. A breaching whale near Portsmouth, New Hampshire landed on top of a boat, capsizing the boat, sending everyone into the water.
Had that encounter not been caught on video it is hard to imagine the boater’s insurance company would have ever bought the excuse of ‘a whale landed on our boat.’ Thankfully, someone had the camera rolling when the whale took out their boat.