Agony of a dream holiday

A holiday in Mauritius got off to a bad start for Richard Downes, of Durban, when a freak accident left him in the island's Port Louis Hospital for a night.

Downes, 23, had been planning the island holiday with his girlfriend, two brothers, parents and two family friends for four months but, on Thursday last week - their first day at the beach - he stood on a highly poisonous stone fish.

"We were in chest-deep water when I felt a sharp prick under my foot and quickly lifted it," said Downes.

At first he thought the 1cm cut was from a shell.

"Within a minute I could feel my ankle starting to go numb as the poison made its way up my foot," he said.

Stone fish are the most poisonous fish in the sea and have excellent camouflage.

Downes later learned that stone fish venom can kill a man if he is not treated immediately, but staff at the hotel clinic knew what to do.

"Within 10 minutes of my being stung they had given me two [anti-venom] injections," he said.

After a "very painful" 45-minute taxi ride to the clinic, Downes was put on a drip. Later doctors cut open his foot and extracted all the venom.

He was discharged the next morning.

"It was a scary incident but something to tell the boys about at work," said Downes, who wasted not a moment enjoying the rest of his two-week family holiday.

"The chances [of this kind of accident] are generally small," he said.

Travel Insurance Consultants MD Jason Veitch said: "Unfortunate things do happen on holiday and that's why it's vital to take [insurance] into consideration when planning your trip."

Veitch's company has had to cover hospital bills for people with other holiday nightmares:

• A couple on holiday in Phuket, Thailand, went for a boat ride off Phi Phi island. A massive freak wave hit the boat and threw most of its passengers into the air. Six of them were injured as they crashed back onto the boat. The woman broke her back and claimed R485000.
• A 43-year-old businessman ordered a vegetable stir-fry at a restaurant in Osaka, Japan, He told the waiter that he was allergic to shell-fish and that the chef should not use it.

When he began to eat the vegetarian dish, his throat closed and he could not breathe - the food was contaminated.

The man told the restaurant to call an ambulance before he had a heart attack. He is now confined to a wheelchair.

• A man who was on holiday in El Calafate, in Patagonia, Argentina, had stopped to take a photo of an old yellow Mercedes-Benz similar to his own car in South Africa.

After taking the picture he looked left to cross the road - not right - and walked in front of a car. He had broken three bones and there was severe swelling around his knees.

It took him six months to recover and his travel insurer paid out R730000.

• A South African woman in her 20s was on one of the Hamilton Islands, off Australia, with her boyfriend when she had a golf cart crash.

There were no cars on the island and so everyone used a golf cart to get around. As they turned a bend, the golf cart tipped over and she fell out, claiming R82000 from her insurer for the hospital bills.