Storytime ↓🪼 🇦🇺 During a roadtrip down the East coast of Australia in 2022, my boyfriend & I arrived in Cairns, Queensland. 🌞 A super sunny day in March meant we wanted to go swimming. We headed down to Palm Cove and saw a section of a netted swimming area which was being manned by a lifeguard and lots of other people swimming in it - we thought we’d found paradise! 🏊‍♂️ Whilst swimming around in the netted area, my boyfriend James felt a small electric shock on his arm. He thought nothing of it and continued swimming. 🤕 After half an hour, James started experiencing excruciating back & chest pain and struggled to catch his breath. We later found out these were all symptoms of Irukandji syndrome and also included a feeling of ‘impending doom’. 🔒 We told the lifeguard who immediately evacuated everyone out of the water at Palm Cove and shut down most beaches in Cairns. 🚑 The brilliant Lifegaurd team called for an emergency ambulance as they instantly knew that he’d been stung by an Irukandji - a rare tiny species of a box jellyfish that is 100 times more venomous than a cobra. 🚨 There’s no antidote for an Irukandji sting, so James just had to ride it out on painkillers in hospital over two days under the care of the brilliant medical team at Cairns hospital. Not everyone is so lucky as the impact of the sting is often too much on the average person’s heart & body. 🪼 We later learnt that Nov - May is known as ‘stinger season’ in Queensland specifically and so protective stinger suits should be worn at all times in the water during these months. The same advice doesn’t necessarily apply for all of Australia, you may not need to wear a stinger suit as you travel further down the coast from Queensland. 🪸James made a full recovery & the experience didn’t put us off the water as we went snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef the following week, this time - with stinger suits! #Australia #irukandji #Irukandjisyndrome #boxjellyfish #australiaboxjellyfish #stingersuit