A 40-year-old fisherman has been taken to hospital with spinal injuries after he was knocked unconscious by a whale.
The mammal’s tail hit the man in the head, while he was in his tinny off the Tweed, near the NSW-Queensland border, with another fisherman.
Critical care paramedic Scott Brown from Queensland Ambulance Service described what happened as “extremely rare” and “extraordinary”.
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“All of a sudden a whale’s tail appeared striking one in the head,” he said.
The skipper and passing jet ski riders raised the alarm just before 9am.
Water police and paramedics jumped into the dinghy with the injured boatie as volunteer rescuers helped guide them back to shore.
“They didn’t want to take him off the boat because they thought he had neck injuries,” John Murray from Marine Rescue NSW said.
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“I’ve been doing this for 22 years and I’ve never heard of a whale actually hitting someone on a stationary boat,” he added.
“We’ve had boats come in contact with whales before but not actually a person sitting in a boat.”
The man was taken to the Gold Coast University Hospital with facial and spinal injuries.
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