A STINGRAY NEARLY KILLED ME

A WALK ON THE BEACH TRIGGERED TWO YEARS OF HELL FOR SHARON

- Emma Levett

It was 2004, two years before Steve Irwin was killed by the barb of a stingray. The world was not yet as aware of how dangerous these marine creatures can be, but a 32-year-old Sharon Muscet was about to find out.

“I was living in London at the time but had been sent home to Australia on a work trip,” Sharon tells New Idea. She was paddling at Adelaide’s popular Glenelg beach when the unexpected happened.

“The water was quite murky and I took a step and saw a small stingray hidden in the sand,” she says. “It flicked its tail up in defence and I stepped on it with my left foot.

“The barb was razor sharp and I remember being really frightened,” she says.

“It wasn’t a big wound but it was really painful and even as I hobbled back to my hotel it wouldn’t stop bleeding.”

But with an important few weeks ahead Sharon patched up the wound with her first-aid kit and tried to soldier on.

“At that point I was such a workaholic,” Sharon says. “I’d be working 70 hours a week and I couldn’t let anything slow me down.”

Fate was about to intervene, however, and even as she dragged herself to meetings and dinners, infection from the poisonous barb was setting in. Extensive nerve damage had also taken hold.