- Steven Kezic, 58, from Perth was on a surf trip when he was stabbed in the face by a garfish
- The fish’s sword-like beak pierced through Steven’s nose and broke off
- The garfish left spiked barbs in his face and needed several stitches
Here Steven tells his story of how he’s lucky to be alive in his own words
Gliding through the water on my surfboard, I paddled past the breaking waves, waiting for a ripper worth catching.
It was June 2023, and I was at a surf school off the Mentawai Islands in Sumatra, Indonesia.
It was around 11am and, sliding off my board, I dunked myself in the water to cool down in the beating sun.
‘Who hasn’t caught a wave yet?’ one of the guys from our group yelled out.
‘Stevie hasn’t!’ my mate Carl yelled back from behind me.
At the mention of my name, I turned around in the water, only to feel a sharp slap across the left side of my face.
Dazed, I tried to piece together what was happening.
Did one of the boys throw seaweed at me? I wondered.
We’d been pranking each other during the trip, so it wasn’t unlike them to be having a laugh.
A strange sensation on my face snapped me back to reality.
I felt a scaly body hit against my cheek and a fishy scent filled my nostrils.
What the…? I thought.
READ MORE REAL LIFE: A fish slit my throat
READ MORE REAL LIFE : Stung by a deadly fish
Looking down, I saw that my rash vest was coloured red with blood.
Seconds later, I locked eyes with the surf instructor as he quickly paddled over to me.
‘You better stop for the day. You’ve got a fish in your face,’ he cried out.
‘You’re joking,’ I replied, stunned.
‘ Its needle-shaped beak broke off in my nose cartilage.’
How was that even possible?
But as the creature kept thrashing around, its needle-shaped beak broke off in my nose cartilage.
With adrenaline pumping, I felt no pain as the fish splashed back into the water.
I couldn’t believe I’d been stabbed by a fish!
By now everyone had stopped and paddled over.
Easing myself back onto my board, as blood gushed from my nose, we raced back to the shore where our boat was docked.
READ MORE REAL LIFE: Speared by a stringray
Back on board, we sped across the waves to get to our resort.
As the shock began to wear off, my face throbbed with pain.
My mates Carl and Rappy pulled out their phones snapping pictures of my wound.
‘The sword-like beak had pierced through from one side of my nose and out the other.’
‘I saw three fish leap from the water and the middle one got you,’ Rappy explained, estimating the garfish, also known as needlefish because of their spiked snouts, was about 30cm long.
Its sword-like beak had pierced through from one side of my nose and out the other.
Woozy from the loss of blood, I passed out.
We arrived around 15 minutes later. Blood was still pouring from my face.
With the nearest hospital three hours away, I began to worry.
Luckily, one of the guys we’d been surfing with, Kyle, was an emergency doctor from Busselton, WA.
‘I’ll get you sorted, mate,’ he promised, adding he’d brought a medical kit with him to patch up coral scrapes and injuries.
Lying me down on a bench seat outside our resort, Kyle returned from his room with his medical kit in hand.
The resort staff were amazing, placing a towel under my head to keep me comfy as Kyle got to work.
Armed with a head torch, Kyle numbed my nose with anaesthetic, before carefully removing the spiked barbs from my face with tweezers.
He worked for almost an hour before stitching the holes closed.
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ I said, gratefully.
‘A fraction higher it would’ve taken your eyes out, and if it’d gone through your throat, you’d be a goner.’
‘You’re really lucky you didn’t lose your eyesight,’ he told me, explaining I’d been speared just over a centimetre below my eyes.
‘If it was a fraction higher it would have taken your eyes out, and if it’d gone through your throat, you’d be a goner.’
When I saw the photos my mates had taken of the beak in my face, I was shocked.
With two days of the trip left, I didn’t surf again, keen to keep my wound from getting infected .The locals later told me that garfish normally only come out at night, where, when startled by light, they jump out of the water.
It seems I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My sister Paula, 55, was the first person I rang when I touched down.
‘I’m so glad you’re okay!’ she said.
Back home, I healed nicely but stayed out of the water for a few months, shaken by the ordeal.
I was heartbroken when I heard about a 36-year-old Italian woman who, surfing in a similar area last year, had been speared through the chest by a swordfish. Sadly, she died.
It really hit home how lucky I was to be alive.
Now, I’m back on the board and surfing again.
I even recently had the beak of the fish set in resin as a key chain. Rappy had kept it for me. Now, every time I leave the house, I’m reminded how close I came to death.
I’ll never take a day for granted again – you never know what’s coming.
