Fourteen-Year-Old Dies After Box Jellyfish Sting At Eimeo Beach

A 14-year-old boy, Mark Angelo Ligmayo, was fatally stung by a box jellyfish at Mackay’s Eimeo Beach on Sunday, 27 February.

He had been standing in waist high water for roughly 10 minutes before walking from the water and crying out for help.

Eimeo Surf Life Savers rushed to Mark to attempt to assist before paramedics arrived.

Paramedics arrived at the scene and spent over 40 minutes attempting to resuscitate the teenager after he stumbled from the water with his legs entwined by what was estimated to be two meters of jellyfish tentacles.

He was then taken to Mackay Base Hospital where he died at 3:22pm.

The Box jellyfish is the most venomous marine animal in the world, with tentacles of up to three metres in length covered in poison-filled darts, called nematocysts, which cause severe pain and leave whip-like marks behind.

The stings can cause paralysis, cardiac arrest, and death within minutes of being stung.

Surf lifesavers had reportedly dragged the beach’s water for jellyfish only 15 minutes beforehand.

Mark, his mother, and sister had only recently moved to Australia from the Philippines to join his father, Nick Guinumtad who has lived in Mackay for several years, but the move had been delayed by the pandemic.

Mark was meant to start at Mackay State High School this month. Dawson Federal MP George Christensen said Mark’s parents wish to take his body back to the Philippines and had already contacted the Philippines Embassy on their behalf.

It is the second fatality from a box jellyfish sting in Queensland in the past 16 years, with the previous the death of a 17-year-old boy stung at Patterson Point in February last year.

Fourteen-Year-Old Dies After Box Jellyfish Sting At Eimeo Beach

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