A fisherman in Australia was killed in a "freak accident" after a huge 40lb mackerel jumped aboard and hit him in the chest, killing him.
The Northern Territory, Australia native, 56 years old at the time of the accident, was reportedly fishing with friends and family at Darwin Harbour. At about 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday, August 14, the fatal mackerel jump occurred.
They then went to Cullen Bay, with the man still breathing. Police and paramedics then attended to the man, and administered CPR. Unfortunately, the man did not survive the tragedy and passed away.
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A 40 Pound Mackerel
A local fisherman noted that it was a mackerel weighing 18 kilograms, or 40 pounds (lbs), that killed the 56-year-old fisherman.
"From reports, it was like an 18-kilo mackerel, so it would have been a big fish that speared right into this guy and caused major blunt [force] trauma," fisherman James Crane told ABC.
"It sounded pretty horrible to have happened, but it does happen."
The Northern Territory Police said that what happened "appears to be a freak incident," noting that it might be distressing for the people who were with the man at the time of the tragedy - friends, family, and other people in the boat. Authorities have also asked the public to respect the affected people's privacy and refrained from giving additional comment on the matter.
Crane commented: "It's horrible that would happen on a fishing boat," adding that it was supposed to be a fun day out for the people involved. In an interview with ABC, Crane also expressed belief that the man was on a personal boat, not in a fishing charter.
"It was hard. Everyone needs to be together right now and to lose someone over a freak accident like that, it was crazy," Crane commented.
Mackerel-Related Injuries
The recent Darwin Harbor incident was the latest casualty related to mackerels. In 2018, a 10 kilogram, one meter long mackerel jumped and sliced a woman's neck open. The flying mackerel reportedly leaped for 1.5 meters, or about five feet in the air before wounding Belinda Bingham.
"It sure had some momentum. It just knocked me off my feet. [I] didn't see it coming, didn't see a thing," Bingham told ABC in 2018. She added that when she came to her senses, "blood was everywhere."
Belinda Bingham, with her husband Neil, had been fishing near the ConocoPhilips pipeline from the Channel Island boat ramp. Their location was roughly 45 kilometers, or about 28 miles, from NT's Darwin, where the 40lb mackerel incident happened.
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Neil Bingham told ABC that the blood from the incident "soaked through his shirt in seconds." He added that at the time of the accident, both of them had no line down the water. He was currently putting bait during the freak incident, so his back was on his wife.
The next thing Neil knew was that his wife was at his feet saying that something hit her, holding her hand to her throat. "You could see the blood coming out through her fingers, pumping," Neil recalled.
Belinda Bingham was sent to Royal Darwin Hospital and made her recovery.
Reminding people that fishes are not completely harmless creatures, here is another video from the Local Knowledge Fishing Show where host Ali Hussainy was also put in danger because of a leaping mackerel:
