Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / NT Health’s Doctor Bart Currie is reminding parents to keep their children out of the seawater now that stinger season has begun

Transcript

NT Health’s Doctor Bart Currie is reminding parents to keep their children out of the seawater now that stinger season has begun · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Many of us steer clear of the ocean due to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: crocodiles and sharks. Across the Northern Territory, another threat has returned,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: prompting a warning from NT Health. Stinger season has officially started,
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  Speaker 1: with venomous box jellyfish likely to be in the waters
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  Speaker 1: up until June next year. Now joining me on the
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  Speaker 1: line right now is Royal Dale and Hospital's professor of Medicine.
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  Speaker 2: But Curry, good morning to you.
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  Speaker 3: Bart, Good morning now.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: But tell me a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: More about what we sort of need to know now
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  Speaker 1: that stinger season is upon us.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, from the first of October through to the
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  Speaker 3: end of May, we advise that people basically do not
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  Speaker 3: enter the sea water because that's the period when the
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  Speaker 3: major box jellyfish enters our waters from the estuaries and
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  Speaker 3: basically periphylates and has a season over that period of
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  Speaker 3: time in our sort of coastal waters.
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  Speaker 1: And doctor Curry, you know, for those who maybe haven't
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  Speaker 1: lived in the territory a long time or don't know
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  Speaker 1: a huge amount about box jellyfish, I mean we're talking
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  Speaker 1: about really very dangerous creatures, aren't we.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, Well, the envenoming process from our major box jellyfish
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  Speaker 3: is recognized as the fastest envenoming process in the natural world,
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  Speaker 3: so far faster in onset of symptoms and potentially death
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  Speaker 3: than with snake bite in particular or spider bye. And
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  Speaker 3: so it is a particular message that we have for
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  Speaker 3: children because the last fourteen deaths in the Northern Territory
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  Speaker 3: top end waters have all been in children.
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  Speaker 1: And is it because they're sort of lurking in that
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  Speaker 1: shallow water or you know what's the reason for that.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the reason for the children is firstly that the
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  Speaker 3: jellyfish do come into the on still days where the
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  Speaker 3: water is calm. The jellyfish come into very very shallow waters,
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  Speaker 3: so they can be literally in ankle deep water or
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  Speaker 3: even in puddles of seawater left on the beach by
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  Speaker 3: receding tides. And with children there's much smaller, particularly young children,
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  Speaker 3: they're much smaller body surface area. Means that a meter
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  Speaker 3: of tentacle contact with a child, a very young child,
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  Speaker 3: is potentially life threatening, whereas in a big, bulky adult,
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  Speaker 3: a meter of tentacle contact will cause really severe pain
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  Speaker 3: where the tentacles are wrapped around, but it won't kill
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  Speaker 3: that adult.
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  Speaker 1: It's pretty scary stuff because you're quite often, I suppose,
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  Speaker 1: sort of sea kids, you know, down at the nightcliff,
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  Speaker 1: full shore or different areas, having a bit of a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a play in those shallow waters.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, so I think that people who have lived here
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  Speaker 3: for a while all aware that basically you keep kids
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  Speaker 3: out of the water full stop. And so it's important
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  Speaker 3: that if people have friends and family visiting, or if
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  Speaker 3: they see tourists who may not be aware of this,
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  Speaker 3: then the it is absolutely the right thing to say,
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  Speaker 3: Look now is the time you definitely don't go in
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  Speaker 3: the water. There are the signs along the beaches in
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  Speaker 3: the Darwin area, but one of the things is that
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  Speaker 3: the majority of the fatal things that have happened have
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  Speaker 3: been out in remoter parts of the territory coastline.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Curry, When is the last time that somebody was
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  Speaker 1: either stung by box jellyfish or fatally stung by one?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? Well, we get things every year, so the vast
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  Speaker 3: majority will not be fatal. So the figure that we
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  Speaker 3: put out is a round about forty people a year
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  Speaker 3: will present to Darwin Hospital or maybe go hospital or
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  Speaker 3: a remote health center with jellyfish things. And our last
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  Speaker 3: fatality in the territory fortunately was almost fifteen years ago,
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  Speaker 3: which was in November two thousand and seven. That was
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  Speaker 3: a six year old boy in a remote location in
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  Speaker 3: the Northern territory. But there have been in the last
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  Speaker 3: two years. There was a death in February this year
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  Speaker 3: in a fourteen year old boy in North queens in Mackay,
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  Speaker 3: and then in March twenty twenty one last year there
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  Speaker 3: was a seventeen year old boy who died up on
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  Speaker 3: the cape in Bamagha. So those two queens And deaths
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  Speaker 3: have really made the people in our friends and colleagues
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  Speaker 3: in Queensland well aware that box jellyfish are across the
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  Speaker 3: whole of Northern Australian waters.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about that.
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  Speaker 1: Are those sort of launching boats sort of at risk
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  Speaker 1: as well, I would assume, you know, given the fact
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  Speaker 1: that they're in some of that shallow water at different times.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, certainly the box jellyfish will will come in around
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  Speaker 3: around boat rams for sure, and people who have been
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  Speaker 3: long term fishes up here will have seen box jellyfish
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  Speaker 3: on the karma days, around the pylons of some of
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  Speaker 3: the boat ramps and at all the jetties. So it's
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  Speaker 3: recommended that when people do need to enter the water,
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  Speaker 3: will be adults hopefully to launch their boats, that they're wearing,
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  Speaker 3: you know, wearing long sleeves if their arms are going
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  Speaker 3: to be in the water, and then long trousers or
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  Speaker 3: quite a few people will wear stinger suits or equivalent
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  Speaker 3: of singing suits, so basically basically clothing that will cover
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  Speaker 3: their skin so that there's no exposed skin for the
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  Speaker 3: tentacles to attach to and then fire off their sort
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  Speaker 3: of venomous stinging cells.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I guess the question on everybody's lips this
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  Speaker 1: morning is going to be you know, what do you
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  Speaker 1: do if you are unfortunately stung?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So the first thing is that quite often people
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  Speaker 3: the pain is instantaneous, so people will often be screaming
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  Speaker 3: out while they're in the water. So people need to
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  Speaker 3: be removed from the water or come out of the water,
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  Speaker 3: or if they're on the beach and they're starting to
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  Speaker 3: scream out, the most important thing is to assess the
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  Speaker 3: person as to whether they're still breathing and whether they've
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  Speaker 3: still got a heart, got a heart that's pumping. So
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  Speaker 3: the thing that may potentially save a life is early
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  Speaker 3: CPR cardiopulmonary resuscitation in someone who has had a collapse
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  Speaker 3: on the beach and is unconscious, and CPR is the
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  Speaker 3: one thing that made just save a life in those
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  Speaker 3: first five to ten minutes, with the potential that calling
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  Speaker 3: and then of course calling for help at the same
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  Speaker 3: time dialing triple zero, and then potentially the person can
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  Speaker 3: get up to the hospital where there is anti venom available.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Dr bart Curry, I'll tell you what.
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  Speaker 1: Between the crocodiles and the box jellyfish, it's probably best
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  Speaker 1: to just.
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  Speaker 2: Stay out of the water.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I think you know. The swimming pools are
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  Speaker 3: still there, so i'd encourage you to give those a go.
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  Speaker 1: Good advice, I reckon, Dr bart Curry. It is always
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  Speaker 1: good to catch up with you. Thank you so much
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  Speaker 1: for your time this morning.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks very much.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.