A woman living in Washington had a close encounter with a “delicate and precious” octopus.
Jamie Bisceglia was wearing her octopus-themed boots while fishing and saw someone catch a juvenile red Giant Pacific octopus, reported King 5 News.
She said, “Can I have that? Don’t let it go, I wanna eat it for dinner.”
Woman puts octopus on face for photo op…octopus bites her, injects venom https://t.co/wBsc3vYFRG pic.twitter.com/1bhY3JvMGA
— CBS 17 (@WNCN) August 7, 2019
Bisceglia wanted to take an unusual picture for a photo contest at a fishing derby in Tacoma on Aug. 2.
“It was a photo contest in the derby. So, crazy me, hindsight now and looking back, I probably made a big mistake,” Bisceglia said, according to Kiro 7.
“It had barreled its beak into my chin and then let go a little bit and did it again,” said Bisceglia. “It was a really intense pain when it went inside and it just bled, dripping blood for a long time.”
She told King 5, “I thought this was pretty cool, it’s a gorgeous, exotic creature, and I put it on my face, and said, take my picture!”
The small octopus grabbed on her face with its suckers and bit her.
“All of a sudden they noticed and I noticed, my eyes just widened, and it had put its beak into my chin, not once but twice, and it was like a barbed hook going into my skin,” she said. “It was bleeding profusely for probably thirty minutes, and [it was] very painful.”
Giant Pacific octopuses have powerful beaks they use to eat crabs and other shelled animals and their bite also has poison used to paralyze their prey.
Although her chin became swollen, she decided to go to the fishing derby the next day anyway.
“I did not go to the hospital because I’m the strongest willed woman, I think, out there and I was dedicated to going to do my derby.”
She spent another day without going to the hospital, but when she woke up Sunday morning she realized that the bite was very serious and required medical attention.
“I noticed that I could not swallow properly, my throat was swollen … the left side of my face was almost paralyzed feeling [sic],” she said.
She got treated by a doctor who was also an octopus fan. She said that he had a blue ring octopus tattoo on his arm.
Octopus bites woman’s face during photo op https://t.co/F4KMUBTFzF via @Mynorthwest
— Cheetah Girl (@CheetahGirl001) August 7, 2019
She is now recovering and would like to warn people about the lesson she learned from this ordeal. “I’m here to tell people that just because something looks delicate and precious or it can’t hurt you, know what you are touching before you do something like I did,” she said.
“And I’m still in pain,” said Bisceglia. “I’m on three different antibiotics. This can come and go, the swelling, for months they say.”
Ouch – woman poses for a picture with an octopus…then it turns on her and bites her in the face. WE-004WE pic.twitter.com/TkHzyU9xj2
— CNN Newsource (@CNNNewsource) August 7, 2019
“This was not a good idea,” she said. “Hindsight, looking back, I will never do it again.”
Despite the incident, she is eager to return to her hobby.
“I’m not gonna stay out of the water for that long,” she said, “I gotta go fish.”
