A lifeguard at a popular beach once told me:
“I’ve seen gangbangers brought to tears from the pain after being stung by stingrays, and I’ve seen toddlers not bat an eye.”
Depending on the severity of the sting, a whip from the poison-barbed tail of a stingray can bring varying levels of pain – from no big deal to excruciating. But one tool that’s in surfers’ and swimmers’ arsenal to fend off stingrays is the “stingray shuffle.”
The question remains, however, how effective is it?
The clip above shows a case study for the stingray shuffle. And the results? It’s only 42.86% effective – still better than not doing it at all, but perhaps not quite as successful as one might’ve thought. Some of the stingrays weren’t fazed at all.
For a quick refresher on how exactly one does the stingray shuffle, here’s the gist: While wading in shallow water, you shuffle your feet on the bottom, creating a cloud of sand. This is supposed to confuse, maybe scare the stingrays, and send them swimming away.
As expected, many commenters on the video had their own thoughts and experiences with stingrays:
“it’s that time of year again ….. I’ve been hit in the same spot at the same spot on the beach at the same time of year at the same time of evening….twice… oh man. The pain is remarkable and will have you guessing if you are gonna make it or not….. when you have to pour boiling water on yourself for relief that’s bad… and it still hurt a month later….”
“Better than stepping on one and snapping a tendon, like what happened to me last July”
“Yeah shuffling is a myth”
“It works ive never been stung”
“Good Sting Raytio”
Happy shuffling.
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