Diana Nyad's Jellyfish
The 62-year-old swimmer has recovered from the stings enough to swim but is struggling to maintain her usual stroke rate, her support team said Saturday morning.
"At 5:50am Diana stopped her freestyle stroke and complained that she couldn't breathe properly, that she wasn't getting oxygen to her muscles," her official blog site says.
Doctors from the University of Miami gave her a shot to reduce inflammation, oxygen and other medication, the blog says, and after treading water for an hour Nyad said she felt better -- although she still couldn't get enough oxygen to her muscles.
Candace Hogan, a friend who has been on most of Nyad's swims since 1978, says she can recover and complete the 100-plus mile marathon, the blog says.
The team initially said Nyad had likely been stung by a moon jellyfish but revised that to say it was the more troublesome Portuguese man o' war.
A National Institutes of Health report says an encounter with a Portuguese man o' war can lead to "significant systemic reactions" but rarely death. While mild stings generally produce localized pain, severe ones can provoke symptoms ranging from headaches to seizures, delirium, coma and paralysis, as well as breathing problems, cramping and vomiting, the NIH says.
Chief handler Bonnie Stoll said on Twitter that Nyad had been "stung along both arms the side of her body and her face."
Nyad had to clear herself of tentacles, change her swimsuit and put on a shirt for protection after the incident.
Another member of Nyad's support team said the way she handled the setback was a "testament to her strength."
"It was scary," said Stoll. "But Diana is happy that this happened early while she is still at her strongest."
A safety diver who entered the water to help Nyad was also stung numerous times, her blog said. He received treatment back on one of the flotilla of boats accompanying her.
Nyad, who began her swim just after 6 p.m. local time from Havana's Hemingway Marina, was about 25 miles off the coast of Cuba just before 9 a.m. local time, her team said.
"I think at the age of 62 I honestly believe I'm in the best shape of my whole life, not just of the last two years," she told reporters.
The former world champion swimmer expects the swim to take close to 60 hours, which would put her into Florida some time Monday.
Nyad last attempted this swim in early August and had to be pulled from the water after some 60 miles, and almost 29 hours of swimming. She blamed a shoulder injury she suffered early in the journey, and an 11-hour-long asthma attack.
Her first Cuba-Florida attempt, back in 1978, was brought to an end by strong currents and bad weather after almost 42 hours in the water, her website says.
Source: cnn
