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An Australian teen was hospitalized after what experts believe were sea fleas left his ankles and feet covered in blood from multiple bites.
After a soccer game on Saturday evening, 16-year-old Sam Kanizay soaked his legs in Melbourne's Brighton Beach. He stood still waist-deep in water for about half an hour and didn't feel a thing, but was "bleeding profusely" when he returned home, his father, Jarrod Kanizay, told BBC News.
"It looked like a war injury ... like a grenade attack. It was really bloody," he said.
"We got him in the shower but as soon as we did that the blood kept re-appearing," Jarrod told BBC News. "It wasn't clotting at all. It just kept bleeding and bleeding."
Sam is expected to make a full recovery.
Jarrod collected samples of the tiny water bugs and sent them to experts. One of them was marine biologist Genefor Walker-Smith. She told Australia's Herald Sun newspaper that the bugs were likely sea fleas, BBC News reported.
"It's possible he disturbed a feeding group but they are generally not out there waiting to attack like piranhas," Walker-Smith said.
Such cases are very rare and there is no reason for alarm, according to experts, BBC News reported.
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