Tributes have been paid to an Italian surfer after she was stabbed in the chest by a swordfish and died off the west coast of Indonesia, the travel agency where she worked said this week.
Giulia Manfrini, 36, was surfing when she was struck by a fish with a long, pointed beak in the Mentawai Islands off the coast of Sumatra island last week.
“She was surfing in the waters off Masokut Island. A swordfish suddenly jumped up and hit her in the chest,” Lahmudin Siregar, acting head of Mentawai’s disaster management office, told AFP on Tuesday.
“They took her to the nearest health clinic, but as soon as they arrived she didn’t make it.”
Lahmudin told state news agency Antara that the swordfish had caused a wound five centimeters deep.
The resort she was staying at said she enjoyed surfing in the region.
“She was hit in the chest by a needlefish and died almost immediately,” Hidden Bay Resort Mentawais said in an Instagram statement on Monday.
“What we do know is that she continued to do what she loved most without suffering. May you follow your path of light and may you surf the eternal waves on the other side.”
James Colston, co-founder of Manfrini’s travel agency AWAVE Travel, said in a statement Sunday that she “died doing what she loved, in a place she loved” in what he called a “freak accident.”
In a post on social media, AWAVE Travel said: “Even with the valiant efforts of her partner, local resort staff and doctors, Giulia could not be saved.”
The company’s website says Manfrini was a former professional snowboarder who heads up surf resort sales.
“Giulia was the lifeblood of this company and her infectious enthusiasm for surfing, snow and life will be remembered by all who came into contact with her,” the company said in a statement.
Fabio Giulivi, the mayor of Manfrini’s hometown of Venaria Reale, said surfing and opening a travel agency had been her “double dream”, the BBC reported.
Last year American professional surfer Mikala Jones has passed away 44 years old after a surfing accident in the same region of Indonesia.
Previous research found that swordfish attacks are extremely rare, but in 2015 a man was killed in Hawaii after apparently being impaled by a swordfish’s beak.
