LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas - It's a fishing tale that packs a wallop so strong it broke the jaw of a southeastern Arkansas teen and covered him in fish blood and guts.
Seth Russell, 15, of Crossett, was cruising Lake Chicot on a large inner tube towed by a boat when a Silver Asian carp leaped from the water and smacked him in the face.
Seth was knocked unconscious.
The teen had oral surgery to wire several teeth together and has back pain doctors attribute to whiplash from the high-speed collision.
He's not the only one who's had a run-in with the "flying" Silver Asian carp.
Carole Engle, director of aquaculture and the fisheries centre at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, says the fish do not fly but they are good jumpers and over the last year, she has had some calls about them causing injuries on Lake Chicot.
"Their jumping behaviour is a problem and their population appears to be growing there," Engle said.
Silver Asian carp were first imported to the United States in the 1970s. Catfish farmers brought them in to remove algae and other suspended matter from their ponds. The Environmental Protection Agency started a program allowing cities to use the fish to help clean the water in sewer-treatment plant ponds.
Seth's mother, Linda Russell, said: "He doesn't remember anything at all."
"He was laughing and the next thing he remembers, he is waking in a hospital."
This is weird and yet pretty funny if you think about it. How many people can say they got whacked in the head by a flying fish?
Hilarious fish
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