Angler survives being run through the chest by a soaring billfish

By Bob Butz, Outdoor Life, Dec2006

Sudden Impact: A soaring marlin packs quite a wallop when, it's hurtling into semething' solid-like this boat (inset). A marlin estimated at only 200 pounds pierced the boat's 5-inch-thick tuna door before breaking off its bill.

It was the closing hours of a high-stakes billfishing tournament in Bermuda. And for Alan Card, 58, and his son Ian, 32-local charter fishing guides-the money looked to be all but in the bag.

"The fish was about fourteen feet long, around eight hundred pounds," says the elder Card. First Mate Ian handed the rod to a client just as the fish came toward them. Then it jumped.

"It happened so fast and without warning," he says. The marlin skewered Ian through the chest.

"The two went airborne, fifteen feet over the side," says Card. "Ian's a big boy, two hundred and sixty pounds, and that fish picked him up like he was a rag doll."

While underwater, Ian and the marlin separated. Card says his son then surfaced, totally conscious, two boat lengths behind, with an exit hole in the middle of his back and a fist-size entry hole just below his collarbone.

Ian was rushed to a hospital for surgery, where doctors said the fish missed cutting the main artery to his heart by only half a centimeter.