September 12, 2006
(REUTERS) A Florida diver shot a large grouper with a spear gun
then apparently drowned when the fish sped into a hole, entangling
the man in the line attached to the spear, investigators said
Monday.
The 42-year-old man, whose name was withheld, was free-diving in
about 25 feet of water off the lower Florida Keys Saturday and
speared a Goliath Grouper, Monroe County Sheriff's Detective Mark
Coleman said.
"It looks like the fish wrapped the line attached to the spear
around the victim's wrist. The fish then went into a hole in a coral
rock, effectively pinning the man to the bottom of the ocean,"
Coleman said in a news release.
Police divers found the speared fish tightly wedged into the
hole, with the man's body still tangled in the line, a sheriff's
spokeswoman said.
Goliath Grouper are the largest members of the sea bass family
and can weigh hundreds of pounds.
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