Going out fishing, you wouldn’t expect to be in any immediate danger but that’s what teen angler Tom Mitchenall thought when he had been fishing for just 15 minutes in competition at Whitehall Angling club in Rushwick, Worcester.
Tom had just struck into a large common carp and when he started playing it, in an attempt to tire the fish out and make it easier to bring in, the line snapped when the fish shot off to the other side of the lake and this resulted in Tom’s float catapulting back 18ft – embedding itself Tom’s chest.
Speaking about the incident Tom said: “The hook pulled out and the float catapulted out and hit me straight in the chest. At first I didn’t realise what had happened and started looking behind me for the float. It’s only when I looked down and saw it sticking out of my chest and at the patch of blood spreading over my shirt that I knew the float had hit me. I tried to pull it out but the end snapped off and about three-and-a-half inches stayed in me. I began struggling for breath and could hear bubbling which was the air rushing out of my lung where the float had pierced it.”
Tom’s dad Graham, aged 54, drove his son to the local hospital where he had three x-rays and a CT scan. Surgeons finally removed the float before they drained the fluid that had flooded his lungs. Tom had to stay in hospital for four days before he was allowed back home and said even though it was a strange thing to happen, it won’t put him off fishing, saying: “I’ll be back out there on Sunday – my dad reckons I should wear body armour but I’ll take my chances.”
A determined carp fisherman battled on despite suffering a heart attack to finish second in a fishing competition.
Now for those of you that aren’t avid fishermen, you wouldn’t really be that bothered about the death of a monster fish, but for anyone that has caught this absolute beauty, you may be a little bit shocked to hear that a carp thought to be one of the UK’s biggest freshwater fish was found floating dead in a Kent lake.
