A man was almost struck by the barb of a whitespotted eagle ray he was trying to rescue from a jetty in Mackay Harbour in Queensland.
Sage River Jefferys was relaxing on his boat with a friend when he heard a “strange sound of flapping” coming from another part of the jetty.
Jeffreys said the ray had launched itself out of the water and onto a “boiling hot deck in the peak of the Australian summer”.
“It was freak of the moment luck that I had my GoPro handy right,” he told Storyful.
“I’m also very grateful not to have gotten hurt or injured by this animal in distress.”
Video captures Jeffreys sprint towards the cartilaginous fish before he uses a buoy to push it off the jetty and into the water below.
The clip also shows Jeffreys and his friend spot the barb ejected by the eagle ray – both of them appearing shocked.
“Did it try shoot me? It tried to shoot me, aye? That’s the deadly barb,” Jeffreys can be heard saying with a stunned look on his face.
Whitespotted eagle rays have been recorded in Queensland, New South Wales, and Western Australia, and are classified a venomous species.
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