A young Australian man dies after being bitten by a jellyfish nicknamed the “sea wasp”

An Australian teenager has been stabbed to death by highly poisonous jellyfish, the first such death in fifteen years, authorities announced on Thursday. The 17-year-old was stabbed on February 22 while swimming from Bamaga, a small town north of Queensland. He was airlifted to hospital by helicopter, where he died on March 1, police said.

The Australian box jellyfish or Chironex flicker is a poisonous jellyfish known to this day, also nicknamed the “sea wasp” or “hand of death”. It lives mainly in the tropical waters north of the vast island-continent, where in the summer, swimmers are advised to wear full-body swimwear or to avoid swimming.

According to marine biologist Lisa-Ann Gershwin, this is the first box jellyfish death recorded since 2006 in Australia. “Unfortunately, (earlier) deaths also occurred in Bamaga,” he announced on television. ABC. Lisa-Ann Gershwin says such a devastating effect is preventable, but people living far away from a city are particularly vulnerable.