Teen's bizarre leg injuries after ocean dip leaves doctors 'stunned' on Savage Australia: Wild & Dangerous
WARNING: This video and article contains graphic content.
When it comes dangerous creatures, size definitely does not matter.
It's a lesson 16-year-old Sam learnt in 2017, a story which was revisited during an episode of Savage Australia: Wild & Dangerous – which you can watch for free on 9Now.
Stream episodes of Savage Australia: Wild & Dangerous for free on 9Now.
While at the beach, Sam was icing his leg in the water trying to recover from a football match.
But minutes later he was rushed to hospital with an unexplainable injury.
Find out what went wrong in the video above.
Numb from the freezing cold water, Sam didn't notice until he got out of the ocean that his feet were covered in blood.
But all was not as it seemed.
"We just thought we better clean off this bit of blood," Sam's mum began.
"We then realised [the blood] wasn't washing away and immediately made the call that he needed to be taken to hospital."
Doctors were left "totally stunned" as Sam's feet were covered in hundreds of pin pricks.
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Doctors had "no idea" what caused Sam's condition.
That's when Sam's dad stepped in and started his own investigation.
The concerned father scooped out some sea water from Brighton Beach and added a piece of meat into a container.
The results were immediate and his experiment pointed to flesh-eating sea fleas as the culprits.
Sam was blissfully unaware that pint-sized piranha prawns were feeding on his flesh while he was in the water.
They chewed away at his feet for half an hour, but numb from the freezing cold water Sam was none the wiser.
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Marine biologists confirmed the creatures were arthropods, scavengers of the sea that are similar to leaches.
"The bugs are pretty small, there were just obviously thousands on Sam's legs to do the damage that they did," Sam's dad told cameras.
"They've been known to bite people before but I've never seen anything like what happened to this boy," one marine biologist said of the creatures.
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Having learned an important lesson Sam admitted that he "won't be icing [his] leg any time soon".
Museums Victoria's Dr Genefor Walker-Smith said at the time: "I think this is quite a rare thing. I really just think [Sam] was in the wrong place at the wrong time
"It is possible that the amphipod has an anti-coagulant that it released like leeches do, so it stops the blood from clotting."
The creatures are common in Port Phillip Bay and Dr Walker-Smith assured it was no cause for alarm as Sam's case was "very rare".
You can follow his experience and more in 'Ep 3 Animal Attacks' of Savage Australia: Wild & Dangerous Season 1 on 9Now.
Stream episodes of Savage Australia: Wild & Dangerous for free on 9Now.
