A 28-year-old angler got more than he bargained for when he started ‘joking around’ with a six-inch Dover sole that he had just caught off Boscombe Pier, Bournemouth.
The fish wriggled out of his hand and went into his throat, he subsequently stopped breathing and suffered a cardiac arrest. Paramedics from South Western Ambulance Service – who said it was the ‘most-bizarre call-out we have ever attended’ – had to remove the fish with forceps in the ambulance, and initially had to work on the man at the pier for over three minutes to restart his heart. The ambulance crew praised the angler’s friends, who continued performing CPR until the emergency services arrived.
So forget all those stories in The Sun about marauding sharks being the greatest threat in UK waters, or reports of Portuguese man o' war jellyfish washing up on our shoreline, obviously, the humble Dover sole can more than hold its own when taken out of its native environment.
