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Just a general warning to anyone on the east coast who has been experiencing the lovely stink bug infestation: They are not harmless.
I was doing checkout dives this weekend with american university students up in PA and in between dives I went to the ladies room (I will NEVER pee in my wetsuit). Well, one of those fuckers got inside the leg of my wetsuit and I didn't notice (I'm not sure how being smooshed between a wetsuit and my leg didn't startle the thing into releasing it's stink chemicals right away).
Well, about 20 minutes later I'm in the water and we are swimming out to the platform and I feel an INTENSE burning on my leg. I'm a little wtf? But I assume it's just some odd reaction to the cold water (water was about 54 degrees on the surface). The burning fades.
Later that day i'm stripping off my wetsuit and the bug falls out (dead, obviously). Where he had been camped out on my leg is now a yellowish tattoo of his abdomen. At the time, it didn't hurt, probably because I was numb from freezing my ass off. Two hours later it becomes a red raised WELT about the size of a dime that is burning and itching like crazy.
Several days later it's still mildly swollen but less so, now a brownish mark that looks almost like a birthmark - probably dead skin from the chemical burn that little shit gave me - and still itchy as hell.
What. The. Fuck. This WOULD happen to me.
And before anyone asks, no, I didn't smell. I'm guessing it all got washed away since I was in the water for like an hour and a half with two consecutive groups of students.
I was doing checkout dives this weekend with american university students up in PA and in between dives I went to the ladies room (I will NEVER pee in my wetsuit). Well, one of those fuckers got inside the leg of my wetsuit and I didn't notice (I'm not sure how being smooshed between a wetsuit and my leg didn't startle the thing into releasing it's stink chemicals right away).
Well, about 20 minutes later I'm in the water and we are swimming out to the platform and I feel an INTENSE burning on my leg. I'm a little wtf? But I assume it's just some odd reaction to the cold water (water was about 54 degrees on the surface). The burning fades.
Later that day i'm stripping off my wetsuit and the bug falls out (dead, obviously). Where he had been camped out on my leg is now a yellowish tattoo of his abdomen. At the time, it didn't hurt, probably because I was numb from freezing my ass off. Two hours later it becomes a red raised WELT about the size of a dime that is burning and itching like crazy.
Several days later it's still mildly swollen but less so, now a brownish mark that looks almost like a birthmark - probably dead skin from the chemical burn that little shit gave me - and still itchy as hell.
What. The. Fuck. This WOULD happen to me.
And before anyone asks, no, I didn't smell. I'm guessing it all got washed away since I was in the water for like an hour and a half with two consecutive groups of students.
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