Just got back from the ER. I'm OK, but a warning.

[Guest brobak]

Just got back from the ER. I'm OK. But a warning to all. First I'd like to say that I'm ok. And second, I hope that some of you might avoid a simliar experience.

 

I have a small nano reef tank that I've recently set up at work. Its an 18g softy tank that I planned to showcase zooanthids in. So a few weeks ago, I purchased about 10 colonies from the logical reef, and set up the little nano for them. About two weeks ago, I noticed a small nudibranch on/in some of the zooanthids. I actually posted here about it to get an ID. I didnt want anything eating my new zooanthid colonies, and I wanted to make sure I didnt need to remove it from the tank. The ID came back as tentatively a zooanthid eater, so I just made the decision to remove them. I'd been picking them out of the tank for about the past week without any thought or worry. Today however, was a different story.

 

I saw one of the little nudi's on the front glass, and I thought that instead of pulling it out, I'd just squish it against the glass. So I reached in and with my index finger, I pressed it into the glass. The thing was about the size of a small zooanthid polyp, or about the size of a pencil ereaser. I saw a little bit of the goo inside it squeeze out, and then I brushed it off my finger in the water with my thumb, pulled my hand out and wiped it off with my towel.

 

It only took about 5 seconds for me to realize something was wrong. I got a hot flash. I didn't think anything of it right at that second, but I sat down and turned back to my computer. About 20 seconds after that, I got another flash, and I noticed that my heart rate was starting to rise. I immediately knew something was seriously wrong. I waited another 30 seconds before I turned around and told a coworker of mine to dial 911. He gave me a questioning look, and I said that I really meant it, and so he said alright, turned around and dialed. At this point, I started to get dizzy, and my heart was really starting to ramp up. This is maybe 90 seconds after I squished the little nudi.

 

He hung up the phone and said they were on their way, and I started to explain what happened in case I lost consciousness before the EMT's got to me. He knows a bit about my hobby, so he understood what was going on. I propped my feet up and tried to breath slow, but it was getting harder to breathe, and my heart was still going faster.

 

The EMT's got there in about 4 minutes. I work in DC and I'm only about 2 blocks from the whitehouse, and 5 from George Washington Hospital, so it thankfully didnt take long. They came up and lifted me out of my chair, put me in an orange chair, strapped me in and got me on oxygen. They carried me out of my work, with everyone looking on of course, into the evelvator and down into the ambulance. The EMT asked me to describe what was happening, so I told her I was having trouble breathing, my heart was racing and I was dizzy. She took my blood pressure. At this point it was about 150/80 and my heart rate was 115bpm. She laid me back, turned up the oxygen, and we headed off for the ER.

 

It only took another 3-4 minutes to get back to the hospital. There was some traffic, so they asked me if I could walk to a wheel chair. I said I'd try, but as soon as I stood up, I collapsed. So they put me back on the stretcher, and took and extra 30 seconds to back the ambulance in to the dock. They then wheeled me into the centrel of the critical care unit.

At this point, they hooked me up to another blood pressure machine. At this point it was about 10 minutes since exposure, and my blood pressure was 169/70 and my heart rate was 154bpm.

 

They wheeled me into a big room, and hooked me up to oxygen again. Three doctors arrived and started to question me. At this point, my fingers on both hands had begun to tingle, simliar to when your hand falls asleep and you start to get blood back in it, only about twice as many pins and needles. I told them this, and I described how the tingling was moving from my fingers up my arms. The sensation made it to my elbow before it started to receed.

 

This is about 15-20 minutes in now, and my thighs began to have a low burning sensation from the inside. This moved down my leg on the inside and back up the outside. Around 25 minutes, my legs went numb. My fingers were also numb at this point, though not to the extent that my legs were.

 

Around the 30 minute mark, I started to shake. Not a violent movie style shake, but a low tremble in my thighs and hands. I could not control it. They actually had to have me sign something at this point, and what ended up on the paper was not really recognizable as a signature. This intensified slightly for about 10 minutes, though never to the point where I was bouncing around on the bed. Just a shake that I couldnt stop. A little more than a shiver when you are really really cold.

Around 40 minutes, this started to subside. They took my tempurature, and it was normal. I had another couple of hot/cold flashes, and my hands began to feel cold and clammy. They checked my breathing and heart with a stethoscope, and asked if I had any pain anywhere. I didnt. They also took my shirt up and checked me over for rashes. I didn't have any.

For the next 15 minutes the hot flashes continued, but I felt like my heart was slowing down. I kept taking my own pulse to make sure my heart was still beating. At 150bpm, you can't really tell that your heart is beating, its just tripping along inside your chest, and I wanted to make sure it didn't stop or start to flutter on me. I dont know what I would have done about it, but it made me feel better.

 

Around an hour, there was a noticable decrease in the number of flashes, and my heart was coming back down to where I could count the individual beats. They stopped constant watch over me, and my coworker and boss showed up. I was starting to feel better at this point, and I was chatting with them for maybe 20 minutes. It seemed like the worst was over, so my boss went back to work, and my buddy stayed with me.

 

He sat with me for about an hour until another doctor came in. He checked all my reflexes, asked me a couple of questions and then left. I got up to go to the bathroom, and was able to walk down the hall without too much trouble, though I was still dizzy and felt very weak.

 

I layed in the critical care room for another two hours as my strength slowly came back, and things went back to normal. Around the 4 hour mark, my blood pressure was back down to 132/76 which is normal for me, and my heart rate was 86bpm.

At this point, I actually felt pretty good, and asked to be discharged. They agreed and let me go.

 

Diagnosis: Toxin Exposure of an unknown nature.

 

I'm supposed to take it easy this evening and if anything funny starts to happen, call 911 again. To be honest, I feel ok now, a little out of it, but I think its more from stress than any risidual toxin.

 

One important thing to note, was that even though I described the zooanthids, and the palytoxin they are known to produce, the doctors were unable to dig up any resource with any information concerning treatment or antidotes. They even called the national aquarium in baltimore for information and came up dry. As I was leaving, I actually logged on to reef central and showed them the palytoxin threads. They were amazed. They filed away the information for later use.

 

I'ts about 9:20 now, I've been out of the ER for about 3 hours. This whole thing started around 1:30pm today.

 

I guess what I want to get across is, that, despite the inherent beauty of our hobby, there are dangerous things that live in our tanks. I wont stop keeping tanks because of this, and if anything, I've just been given a deeper respect for what comes out of our oceans. But please, be aware, and be careful. After 6 years of uneventful reef keeping, I've come to love this hobby, and I thought I knew what was going on and had it all under control, but I was put in my place today. It just goes to show you that we still all have so much to learn, and we have to be careful about learning it.

 

Thank you.

 

PS A picture of the nudi can be seen here (large file)

 

http://www.phortawesome.com/tank/na...03/P1010003.JPG

http://64.46.104.112/tank/nano/16apr03/P1010003.JPG

 

Galleries of all my tanks can be seen here

 

http://www.phortawesome.com/tank/

http://64.46.104.112/tank/

[Gatortailale]

WOW, glad you are ok.  

 

Thanks for sharing this with us.  It will be a good thing to remember in the future not to squish things with bare fingers.

 

enjoy your rest this weekend.

Craig

[ReefMon]

WOW, thank god you came out OK!

.

 

Just goes to show how you really need to be careful when messing around with mother nature!

 

Take it easy this weekend, keep your hands out your tank. Do yourself a favor and order some Aqua Gloves  http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=6&pCatId=3871  and USE them in the future!  Now you've been exposed, another contact could be much more serious (as if that wasn't bad enough!)

[Guest ssaldana]

Its really nice to hear everything turned out fine. I, for one, check very carefully before picking up anything in my tank. I've read too many stories on reef forums. Good move on calling 911 immediately. Im not sure what I would have done in your situation.

[JMsAquarium]

Glad to hear you are doing fine.

[chideloh]

Thanks for the warning.

 

Glad to hear that you are doing OK now, Brian.

 

David

[cowrie]

So sorry!  I know the antibiotic and steroid lesson too! Got zapped by a HUGE elegance coral while in the coral tank at the Zoo last year.  Pretty nasty infection set in.  Had been getting in there for years with only a farmer john so I am not sure what was different that time.

 

Can we see a picture of the evil predator?  Or does anyone know the name of it?

 

Tamie

[Guest yrachmael]

Glad to hear you are OK.  You most likely have had an allergic reaction to one or two toxins.  Some nudi's actually ingest the nemocysts from their prey and maintain them in their bodies as 'poison spears'.  Other's as you know, produce their own toxins.  Squashing a nudi opens you literally to both sources as the nemocyst could puncture the skin!

 

Love to see a picture of one of theses guys.

[Gatortailale]

I think it's his second link in his post that has the picture, but I think this is a copy of the link and picture of it.

 

http://64.46.104.112/tank/nano/16apr03/P1010003.JPG

 

Hope this helps.

 

Any update on your health????

 

Hope you are all better

Craig

[jhemmer]

Brian-

 

Wow! That's quite a story. I almost thought it was an old post (April fools joke) when I first read it. That must've been very scary. Glad you're ok.

 

fyi- the red open brain I got from you is doing great. It eats like a pig and opens up real nice now. I'll have to send you some pics.

 

Stay away from those nudis.

 

John