62-year-old woman trying to swim from Cuba to Florida is forced to quit after being stung by jellyfish
Posted September 25, 2011 1:11 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
MIAMI – A 62-year-old woman trying to swim from Cuba to Florida has been forced to call the swim off.
Diana Nyad started her swim from Havana Friday night, but Saturday night had to be treated for jellyfish stings to her face and body.
“Nyad was very swollen from multiple stings to her face and body,” said Vanessa Linsley, who worked on Nyad’s team.
“She’s pissed. Nobody blames her. There isn’t anything that can change this, there’s nothing that has to do with your swimming capabilities. You can’t control Mother Nature.”
The 62-year-old swimmer had completed at least 49 miles (79 kilometres) of the 103-mile (166-kilometre) passage of the treacherous Florida Straits. She soldiered through the stings, at one point cutting eye and mouth holes through a swim cap she wore over her face to prevent future stings.
But by late morning, medics warned that toxins from the stings were building up and another sting could be serious.
In a Facebook posting, Nyad’s team said she called out to her team from the water, saying medical experts told her not to go another two nights in the water.
According to the post, Nyad told her team: “But for each of us, isn’t life about determining your own finish line? This journey has always been about reaching your own other shore no matter what it is, and that dream continues.”
Linsley said Nyad was about to get out of the water and was surrounded by her support team.
Nyad was making her second attempt in as many months at the Cuba-Florida crossing, a lifelong dream that she first tried as a 28-year-old back in 1978, when she swam inside a steel shark cage for about 42 hours before ending the attempt.
A cageless attempt this past August fell short 29 hours in when, gasping for breath, Nyad threw in the towel after an 11-hour asthma attack she blamed on a bad reaction to a new medicine.
