Jack Kramer
Oct 20, 2006

A spotted eagle stingray attack of an 82-year old Florida man revisited the Steve Irwin death. The grandpa was struck by a spotted eagle stingray near his heart, and many immediately thought of the Crocodile Hunter's tragic death just last month that happened in similar fashion.

But unlike Steve Irwin, James Bertakis did not pull the barb out. That may have saved the man's life.

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The Post Chronicle reports that Bertakis was in his 18-foot boat with his granddaughter on Wednesday afternoon. He was on the Intracoastal Waterway at Lighthouse Point, 30 miles north of Miami when the ray leaped into the boat.

As Bertakis was attempting to lift the ray back into the water, its tail struck him in the chest. Authorities say he managed to pilot the boat back to shore and when rescue workers reached him, the barb was still lodged in his chest.

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Reuters reports that surgeons at Broward General Medical Center removed a six-inch toxic barb from his heart and he was in critical but stable condition today after the operation.

"As long as we don't have any problems, God willing, he'll survive this,'' said Dr. Eugene Costantini, a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon at Broward General. "

"He's a lucky man.''

'He's 82 years old and he's had a lot of surgery in two days,'' Costantini said. "We expect there to be some bumps in the road.''

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The eerie similarities to the Irwin accident were immediate.

Dr. Eugene Costantini, who operated on 82-year-old American stingray victim James Bertakis, said that Irwin might have been able to receive vital medical attention had he not ripped the barb out of his chest, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

"The key was the removal that released the blood flow from the inside of the heart and I think that was probably the final event for Steve,'' Dr Costantini told smh.com.au during an international conference call with journalists.

"If [the barb] had been left in place, he might have had the opportunity to make it to a hospital,'' he said.

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Dr. Costantini said he never expected to deal with a patient who had been stabbed in the heart the same way Steve Irwin had.

"I must say it's an unusual presentation,'' he said of Mr. Bertakis, who was on a boat off the Florida coast with his two granddaughters when a spotted eagle ray leapt out of the water and landed in his boat.

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Family members told US media outlets Mr. Bertakis was "a fighter" and "an athlete" who "rarely gets sick [and] lives in this 35-year-old body".

"With God's blessing, he's going to get through it," his son, Jim Bertakis, told the Miami Herald.

--Jack Kramer writes from Florida