A two-year-old girl has been left in pain with an open wound after playing in a stream of water at L’eree on Sunday.
Alua’s parents didn’t see what happened and couldn’t find anything afterwards but they believe it might have been a jellyfish sting.
Megan Bailey and Rhys Le Poidevin shared two photos of their daughter on Facebook, showing their daughter’s bottom around half an hour after she was stung and around 12 hours later.
Ms Bailey told Express that Alua is “still very much the same”, two days on from receiving the sting and being treated at the hospital.
She is now on antibiotics to avoid infection as the weals which appeared after the sting have now developed into an open wound.
“We’re hoping to see an improvement in the next few days,” she said.
Ms Bailey wanted to highlight her daughter’s injury because “it’s important to make people aware as we literally didn’t see anything in the sand!”
Despite believing it was a jellyfish that stung their daughter, the couple can’t be sure.
Doctors and fishermen have said it is likely that it was though.
“The doctor said he wasn’t 100%, however he said he was almost certain. A fisherman has also contacted me to say that he has been fishing in Herm and Guernsey over the weekend and saw a lot of lion’s mane jellyfish.
“Pictures on google look very similar to how Alua’s wound first came up.”
Ms Bailey said it all happened very quickly.
“She was sat in the sand and jumped up saying ‘ouch’. We looked around the area and then took her bathers off to see if anything has crawled inside. When we didn’t find anything I walked up the beach to get her dummy to help soothe the crying and as I bent down I saw her red leg with purple lines through it. I’d say this was within 10 minutes.”
“The rash worsened overnight,” she added. She went to bed looking relatively like the first picture and awoke to what the second picture is. It is now much worse.
“She has been ok if she’s standing up, but it hurts her to sit down, lying on her side to sleep and going to the toilet. However, since having the bandage put on it, it has seemed to give her a bit more of a ‘cushion’. She has been out on antibiotics to stop any infection as it is now an open wound.”
Lion’s mane jellyfish stings are usually characterised by local inflammation, and weals.
The stings are known to be painful, but rarely fatal.
The lion’s mane jellyfish is one of the largest known species of jellyfish. It lives in cold waters such as the Arctic, northern Atlantic, and northern Pacific Oceans, but is also common in the English Channel, Irish Sea, North Sea, and in western Scandinavian waters.