When Nova, 9, was swimming with a friend at the end of June, something very unexpected and nasty happened.
She had just jumped from a jetty at the Lulusundet bathing area in Luleå and was on her way out of the water, when she felt something bite in one of her feet.
– It hurt a lot, I could feel the teeth, Nova tells TV4 Nyheterna.
When the pike struck, Nova screamed loudly. Her parents, who were sitting on the beach, heard her and wondered what had happened.
– When I heard her scream, I thought at first that she had stepped on a stone, but when I saw the foot and we had wiped away a lot of sand, there were marks on and under the foot. Then I thought it couldn’t be a rock, but it must be an animal that bit her, says father Rickard Carnerud.
Thought it was a viper bite
After consulting a friend who works as a nurse, the family decided to take Nova to the hospital. There it was first thought to be a viper bite, but after talking to the Poison Information Center the doctors concluded that it was not a viper but rather most likely a pike, something NSD was the first to report on.
– They thought it was a viper. But there were so many small wounds and vipers don’t have that many teeth, so then they realized it was a pike, Nova tells us.
– At the hospital, they have never experienced anything like this, so Nova’s foot is the talk of the whole hospital now, says father Rickard.
As treatment, Nova received both a tetanus injection and antibiotics, and today the foot is almost healed. Some scars remain.
“Trauma treated” with bathing
Despite the unpleasant experience, Nova has still ventured into the water again, but not at Lulusundet. However, she was there fishing a week or so after the bite – and caught a pike that she would like to believe is the very pike that bit her.
– It was probably that one, because it was the only hungry one, says Nova.
She says that maybe someday she will dare to swim at Lulusundet again. Father Rickard tells us that they have “trauma treated” by swimming and also fishing for pike.
– Now we have done everything we could to get her to dare to swim again, and she has.