Freaky Fishing Accident

angus63

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Man dies in freak fishing accident

BY MARC BEJA | lidesk@newsday.com 9:44 PM EDT, July 29, 2008 In a freak accident, a piece of fishing equipment ended up killing a Roosevelt man Tuesday.

Jaime Chicas, 21, of Roosevelt, was fishing off a jetty at the west end of Jones Beach on Friday when his 3-ounce lead sinker came out of the water and hit him in the face and then lodged in his brain.

"Suddenly, we saw him laying on the rocks," said Jose Gonzalez, 30, Chicas' brother-in-law. Gonzalez and his cousin, who both had been fishing with Chicas, ran over to find Chicas bleeding from his head.

"We thought it was the fishing hook, because the thread was dangling by his eye," Gonzalez said through an interpreter. "We never could have imagined this."



The trio had gone fishing a few times before and visited the beach often, Gonzalez said. While the sun set, Chicas kept fishing, as the others began packing their belongings. As Gonzalez and his cousin walked toward the beach, they heard Chicas make a whimpering noise behind them.

After looking at X-rays, doctors at Nassau University Medical Center, where Chicas was taken, saw that the sinker of Chicas' fishing pole had just missed his right eye and entered his head at the bridge in his nose. The momentum of the lead weight continued across the middle of his brain into the back left side of his head, where it stopped, neurologist Imran Wahedna said.

"There was so much force that it kept going and it lodged through the back of his head," Wahedna said of the lead sinker. "The trauma was simply too severe."

Chicas was pronounced brain-dead at 2 p.m. yesterday, from severe head trauma and herniation, Wahedna said.

Wahedna and New York Fishing Tackle Trade Association president Gene Young all said they had never seen anything similar to Chicas' injury.

"This has to be a one-in-a-billion thing," Young said.

Chicas, a native of Lolotiquillo Moraz?n, El Salvador, had moved in with his sister, Nohemy, 27, and Gonzalez last year.

On Sunday mornings, he played soccer at Cantiague Park in Hicksville, where five men in the same soccer league were hit by lightning on Sunday, Gonzalez said.

Chicas is also survived by his parents, Jose and Feliciana Chicas; his wife, Fatima, and his 1-year-old daughter, who live in El Salvador; and his brother, Julio Chicas, of Hempstead.

Chicas' family is trying to raise funds to send his body back to El Salvador for burial.
 

jay_merrill

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Wow! I agree with the tackle manufacturer - this must be a one in a billion circumstance! I've never heard of anything like it!
 

SS MAYFLOAT

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

That is really freaky to say the least. I can only vision him having a snag and pulling hard to get it unstuck to have it whiplash out of the water that way. Usually it ends up some bystander or angler getting hooked or bruised a bit by the sinker.
 

gonefishie

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

OMG! :eek::eek: A 3 oz sinker? I'd bet it's one of those pyramid shaped one. 3 oz of lead is a huge chunk as compare to any of my sinkers. He must have pulled the heck out of that thing to get it unstuck. I was flipping flooded brush with a 1/2oz bullet sinker and got hung up. I snapped the rod tip hard to free it. It got free and came flying back at me. I stuck my hand out to stop it from hitting the unsuspecting co-angler in the back of the boat. It hit my hand right below the ring finger on the palm side. It felt like my hand was broken, bruised and hurt for 3 weeks. That was only 1/2oz, I can even imagine 3 ounces. :eek:
 

TwoBallScrewBall

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Yeah must have been yanking on a snagged line and it came flying back at him. I was fishing a lake this year with a rooster tail and the lure got snagged in a tree. I yanked back on it and it came whipping back and embedded the hook in my forearm. That was fun.
 

CATransplant

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

I'll bet it was a pyramid sinker, too. I learned the lesson of not leaning on a snag too hard years ago, after a knot on my head from a 1/2 oz. sinker.

These days, I don't use pressure to retrieve rigs. There are good tools for retrieving lures, etc. I also wear good glasses all the time while fishing. A hook in the eye is an unnecessary thing.
 

wildmaninal

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Yeah must have been yanking on a snagged line and it came flying back at him. I was fishing a lake this year with a rooster tail and the lure got snagged in a tree. I yanked back on it and it came whipping back and embedded the hook in my forearm. That was fun.

My cousin got a treble hook stuck in his arm yesterday when we were out fishing in my boat, our uncle was the main one helping him. He yanked on his rod and the lure couldn't of done any better then to hit him in the forearm.

Goes to show if you are fishing with heavy artillery: wieghts, lures, worm hooks can be dangerous, even fish jumping out of the water into the boat can be dangerous as we seen on other threads. Sometimes it is worth cutting the line and letting it go, or if you are fishing the banks from your boat go to retrieve the lure if at all possible instead of yanking it, or if your lure/bait gets hung under water reel the line up to the lure (underwater) if it isn't that deep and then give the lure a push in the direction away from obstruction that the lure is hung on.
 

rentalguy1

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Am I the only one that noticed that the guy was most likely an illegal alien? His group didn't speak English. They were from El Salvador. He moved last year, but his wife and son are still in El Salvador. Sounds like an illegal to me.

It's still a tragic accident, and a child has lost her father, however.
 

sunaj

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Guess this means you will be required to register your lead sinkers now and pay a tax
 

CN Spots

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

I thought they were only dangerous in California...:confused:

Odd and tragic. What a way to go.
 

SnappingTurtle

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Am I the only one that noticed that the guy was most likely an illegal alien? His group didn't speak English. They were from El Salvador. He moved last year, but his wife and son are still in El Salvador. Sounds like an illegal to me.

I guess that all the painters at Donzi are also all illegal aliens.

According to a piece about there painting methods, I read today at the PPG website, none of them speak English ether. Donzi is a major U.S. Government contractor, I wonder if I should call the Governor?

This would also mean that of the 40,000 Americans in Germany, 35,000+ of them are also illegal aliens because they don't speak German.

You may be right about this man, but is this really the place, or the time to point this out?

I feel sorry for anyone, and their family, who looses their life in a tragic accident regardless of what it says in their passport. We are all created equal under the eyes of the ...

I wont finish that sentence. No Politics, no sex, no religion.

Sorry, but I live as a foreigner in a country, where over 30% of the people openly admit to being Neo Nazi's. Wish you knew how it felt, with the shoe on the other foot.
 

triumphrick

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Pretty cheesy....don't really care where the guy is from or his legal status. You can find a ton of forums, other than this one, to rant about that. Good post ST, I too have lived overseas and felt that reverse discrimination.

The guy was fishing for Christs sake. That's what I do, and I already have a bond with him just for that. I am always the last one to drag in my line or say "yeah, I'm ready to go now."

Look, I live in Florida. We have huge citrus and fruit growers who depend on anyone other than Americans to pick their crops 'cause we're too good or lazy or whatever.

These people are here and we depend upon their cheap labor to harvest our crops.

For years our church has donated a home and food for Mexican immigrants, some illegal, some legal. And you know what? There is no way in hell for me to tell the difference. :confused:
 

PW2

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Somehow, I don't think we got the whole story here. Not sure what the minimum feet per second that sinker would have to be travelling in order to penetrate the skull, and I dont think it's possible to reach the necessary speed travelling thru water.
 

chiefalen

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

A real shame, man was out enjoying one of g-d's free pleasure fishing, and losses his life.

Goes to show you tomorrow is promised to no man.
 

jbjennings

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Wow, that's terrible.
My dad said he had a sinker knock out all his front teeth years ago. I've had one fly by my face so fast I think it could have killed me. Pulling on a snagged lure, especially a lead one, is definitely a topic I will cover when my son starts doing some serious fishing with me. I'll bet this incident isn't nearly as rare as it seems and lots of folks have had a "close miss".
JBJ
 

oops!

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Somehow, I don't think we got the whole story here. Not sure what the minimum feet per second that sinker would have to be travelling in order to penetrate the skull, and I dont think it's possible to reach the necessary speed travelling thru water.

thats what i thought.......and how many pounds test line....to pull that hard off a snag.......??????

3 oz sinker....the line could not have been that big to take the force of a heavy pull to cause that kind of velocity.......

call adam and jamie !......or ....just carey
 

CATransplant

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Am I the only one that noticed that the guy was most likely an illegal alien? His group didn't speak English. They were from El Salvador. He moved last year, but his wife and son are still in El Salvador. Sounds like an illegal to me.

It's still a tragic accident, and a child has lost her father, however.

I guess I fail to see the point, here. The guy's dead. Leave it alone, please. I don't know his immigration status, and neither do you. It's irrelevant to the story.
 

rentalguy1

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Did you all bother to read my last sentence??

This is my opinion, and I forgot that you are not allowed to have an opinion on this site. I hate this ****ing site! I hate the ****bag mods on this site! I hate everything about this ****ing place and have no idea why I came back after my first run in with the asshat mods here. The only reason I can think of is because I wanted to share my new boat with everyone. There is more ****ing censorship on this site that any I have ever see. Please do me a favor and ban by IP addy so that if I ever get drunk and want to check this place out, I can't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Oh yeah...**** you mods!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

CN Spots

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

15 lb Trilene Big Game will straighten out a 5/0 hook pretty easily in a straight pull. The energy stored, just in the line, is stout. Not to mention the energy in the rod. A 3/8 oz worm weight popped me in the gut once & brought me to my knees. It broke the skin and bled quite a bit. Had it hit my eye...:eek: Not hard to imagine what a 3oz sinker could do.
 

chiefalen

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Re: Freaky Fishing Accident

Rentalguy1: Your just plain wrong.

They left your post up.

Good people can sometimes disagree.
 
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