Citation

Takada R, Yanagawa Y, Takeuchi I. Wilderness Environ. Med. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.wem.2021.07.002

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The common bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, has a global distribution. The mammal weighs an average of 150 to 200 kg and reaches 2 to 4 m in length. Dolphins are characterized as high-speed swimmers, propelled by a powerful horizontal lunate tail fin consisting of 2 flukes, which play an important role in their swimming. They can leap in the air or stand out of the water using this tail fin. They are also intelligent creatures and able to learn tricks, perform in shows, or interact with humans after appropriate training. We herein report a case of splenic injury induced by a blow from a dolphin's tail fin.

A 12-y-old boy in a wetsuit was travelling through the water while holding the dorsal fin of a trained bottlenose dolphin in an aquarium. He had no remarkable personal or family medical history and was a tourist from Saitama, located near Tokyo. When he erroneously released the dorsal fin, he sustained a sharp blow to the left flank by the dolphin's tail fin. He acutely felt severe pain, but he returned to his hotel with his parents. He then experienced a generalized tonic clonic seizure of approximately 10 s in duration at 3 h after the injury. He vomited 5 times within 7 h after the seizure. These symptoms did not recur throughout the night or the following day. However, the flank pain did not improve. His parents called an ambulance, and he was transported to our hospital by a physician-staffed helicopter. Helicopter transportation was arranged owing to the distance needed to travel to arrive at the hospital; ground ambulance would take more than 90 min, versus 15 min by helicopter...

Language: en