News
Fish attacks and chokes Maldivian fisherman to death
View(s):A Maldivian died after a fish pierced his throat and choked him to death, the Colombo Coroners’ Court was told this week.
On Tuesday (24), around 10.30 am, 41-year-old G. Abdullah, a father of five, was fishing with his brother-in-law and friend off Sithir Island, Maldives, when a long fish latched on to his body, then penetrated it and got stuck in the throat.
He was immediately rushed to a local hospital and later transferred to Central Hospital Colombo, where he succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday.
Giving evidence before the Coroners’ Court, the deceased’s brother-in-law, Abdullah Wahad, 48, said that they were fishing with rods when the incident took place.
“We were in the boat and my brother-in-law was six feet away from me. While we were fishing a long fish jumped onto my brother’s body and bit him on the shoulder. With long spikes it pierced his throat and got stuck i it,” Mr. Wahad recalled.
He said that when they took the victim to the hospital, the doctors failed in their efforts to take the fish out of the man’s mouth. Later, Abdulla was flown to Sri Lanka and admitted to the Central Hospital Colombo, where he died.
The second to give evidence was 29-year-old Ahmad Mohied, a fisherman and friend of the deceased.
“I was watching from a distance, when my friend got out of the boat into waist-deep water, and walked a few yards away from it,” he told the Colombo Additional Coroner Mohammad Ashroff Rumi.
“Then a fish with spikes latched onto his body and bit his shoulder. He started to bleed heavily. I ran to him and tried to pull the fish out, but my friend screamed and fell unconscious,” he added.
Mr Rumi said that death was caused by a fish piercing the throat and choking the deceased to death. He ruled it as an accidental death.
The body was handed over to the brother-in-law without a postmortem, and the Inquirer into Sudden Death ordered the burial at Jawatte Muslim Burial Grounds on June 26. – (CS)