Flying stingray shattered victim's skull in 'freak' accident

A woman who was killed when a stingray jumped out of the water in the Florida Keys and hit her face died of skull fractures and brain injuries, not from the animal’s poisonous barb, a medical examiner said today.

Judy Kay Zagorski, 57, of Pigeon, Michigan, was in the front of a boat going 40kph yesterday when a 34kg spotted eagle ray leapt from the water and hit her in a freak collision.

Monroe County’s medical examiner, Dr Michael Hunter, said the cause of death was “blunt force” head injury and that the collision with the ray killed her off Marathon, about 50 miles north-east of Key West.

Dr Hunter’s report noted she suffered “multiple skull fractures and direct brain injury resulting in sudden death”, said Jorge Pino, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

She was not stung by the ray. The collision knocked Zagorski backward, on to the floor of the boat, Pino said.

“The force of that impact was dramatic,” he said.

The family requested that no autopsy be performed, Pino said.

Zagorski, who operated a marina on Lake Huron, was on holiday with her family in Marathon. She was on the boat with her father, Virgil Bouck, 88, who was driving; her mother, Verneta; and her sister, Joyce Ann Miller, Pino said.

Spotted eagle rays can grow to about 5 metres long, including the tail, and weigh up to 227kg. Some have wingspans as wide as 3metres.

They are not aggressive and use the venomous barb at the end of their tail for defence.

While they are known to occasionally jump out of the water to escape predators, remove parasites or give birth, collisions with humans are “unheard of”, Pino said. “It was a freak, freak accident.”

Spotted eagle rays are protected in Florida waters and are typically seen swimming in groups near the ocean’s surface.

Ray encounters may be rare, but they do happen.

In 2006, a South Florida man was critically injured when a stingray flopped into his boat and stung him. James Bertakis, 82, of Lighthouse Point, underwent surgery after the stingray left a foot-long barb in his heart. He has since recovered.

“Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was killed in 2006 when a stingray’s barb pierced his heart off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.