Box jellyfish victim looks for saviour
A FORMER Townsville resident is hoping to look through the mists of time and find the identity of a man she says saved her life more than 70 years ago.
Robin Downs, 81, survived a box jellyfish sting off The Strand in December 1950, and credits the actions of a young man who drove her from the beach to her father’s house in Stanley St.
From there she was raced to Townsville Hospital, where doctors treated her horrific injuries.
The jellyfish sting was apparently the talk of Townsville at the time, and she is hoping someone knows the identity of her hero.
“I had gone to the Townsville Olympic swimming pool but it was shut, because there was a polio epidemic at the time, so I walked to the beach next door to the pool,” said Ms Downs, who now lives in Victoria. “After about 10 minutes waist-deep in water I suddenly felt as if someone had poured me into a vat of boiling oil.
“I must have screamed my head off and then I became unconscious.
“I came to, finding about 10 people putting sand on me in an effort to remove the long purple strands of stingers that covered my legs and forearms.
“Eventually my ‘hero’ ar
rived: a man who picked me up and carried me to his car to take me home.
“I was pretty delirious at this stage and my mother had to cut my bathers from my body as I had swollen up all over.”
Ms Downs’ father was a doctor who helped set up the psychiatric unit at Townsville Hospital, and she remembers being rushed to hospital and being treated.
“No one knew what to do or how to treat me as there had never been such an event there,” Ms Downs said.
“I was completely covered in some sort of yellow porridge cream and bandaged from head to toe.
“I stayed in the hospital for some considerable months having bandages changed every day.
“My legs and arms were
like rotten pieces of steak.
“It was decided after a few months to send me to the cooler climate up north in Lake Barrine to see if they (the scars) could heal, which they did. I had almost a year off school.”
Townsville’s first recorded box jellyfish sting took place in the 1880s near Ross River, and there have been at least 70 recorded deaths by box jellyfish in Australia.
JCU associate professor and toxinologist Jamie Seymour said Ms Downs was probably stung by a juvenile box jellyfish.
“We now know that box jellyfish that are smaller than the size of an adult fist don’t have the cardio toxic component in their venom that attacks human hearts,” he said. “The vast majority of people who are stung by these animals survive, it is only people who receive huge stings and from adult animals that unfortunately suffer cardiac failure.”
Ms Downs may have got lucky it was only a young jellyfish which stung her, but she is certain that it was her knight in shining armour from 70 years ago who saved her life. “Perhaps he told some relatives about this and they may still be alive and remember,” she said.
“I know he has probably passed away, maybe a long time ago, but it would be lovely to know who he was.”