Girl, 11, stung by fish on a Cornish beach left in agony for 8 months
A GIRL of 11 has been left unable to walk after she stood on a poisonous fish during a family holiday in Cornwall.
Evie Austin had been paddling at the beach with her older sister and stepfather when she was stung.
Screaming in pain, she ran over to her mother on the beach in Perranporth.
Lifeguards nearby recognised Evie’s symptoms as a weever fish sting and sent her to get the small cut on her foot washed, as warm water can help disperse the poison. Although weever stings can cause excruciating pain, symptoms normally ease after 24 hours.
But after two days Evie was still in agony, suffering pain that doctors said was on a scale with having her foot being held over flames. The family decided to cut their two-week break short and travelled home to Sheffield. But two months after she was stung in August last year, her condition showed no signs of improving.
Doctors diagnosed her with complex regional pain syndrome, a rare condition triggered by an injury which causes constant, severe pain.
Experts don’t know exactly what causes the condition, but it is brought on by fractures, burns, sprains and cuts.
The syndrome means Evie, who has since turned 12, must take a cocktail of drugs every day which has included morphine, tramadol and ketamine.
She had to start senior school in a wheelchair, and can only attend for one hour a day, four days a week, as the strong painkillers affect her concentration.
Evie’s mother Jane Austin, 43, recalled how the drama played out on the beach.
‘She was screaming and she passed out because it was so bad,’ she said. All I could see on her foot was a little cut, but within about ten minutes the whole of her foot was purple. We just thought that one day it would start improving.
‘But one week spilled into a month, then two months and before we knew it we had a child that wasn’t mobile and she had to start secondary school in a wheelchair.’ Mrs Austin, who works as an operations manager for a finance company, said: ‘Her pain ebbs and flows and, up until the introduction of ketamine in December, her pain spikes would floor her for about two-and-a-half hours. The pain is excruciating.
‘Doctors have told us most children go into remission but we just have no idea when that will be.’ Dr Robert Ellis from the College of Life and Environmental Science at the University of Exeter said: ‘This fish is around 15cm long.
‘It spends much of its time partially buried in the sand close to shore, with only its eyes, mouth and dorsal fin exposed.
‘Whilst I have never experienced a sting, it must be very painful as reports in scientific literature cite a man who amputated his own finger in a bid to alleviate the pain.’