A happy swimming day on the Vuna Road waterfront, turned into a nightmare for one family yesterday, after a long black spiky sea creature wrapped itself around a young boy’s leg and arm causing him to panic in the water and sink. Fortunately, the boy's father was nearby in the water and rescued the 10-year-old.

The Tovo family were at the seafront near the Touliki boat ramp, on Vuna Road.

Concerned mother, ‘Asena Tovo told Matangi Tonga today this unidentified creature wrapped itself around the left leg and arm of her son “so he couldn’t swim away or get up.”

She was on the shore and watching her son swim near the public swimming pool bridge on Monday evening, when all of a sudden “he looked like he was drowning”.

She yelled out to her husband who was in the water nearby and “he just went and grabbed him out of the water and there came the ‘thing’.” She said her husband pulled it off the boy but it wrapped around her husband's arm before he flung it up into the air and away into the sea.

They were both bleeding having being punctured by the spikes on the creature’s body.

While their wounds from the spikes are not deep, ‘Asena was concerned that any child could drown if the same situation happened and went unnoticed. She urged parents to watch their young children closely when they are in the water.

She said her son did not yell out but was going in and out of the water.

“It was pretty scary.”

They took the boy to Vaiola Hospital to be treated.

The family reported the incident to Tonga Police, who cleared the same area of swimmers this evening.

‘Asena said they go swimming nearly every day and this was the first time they had ever come across a sea creature like this.

She said the creature was over 1 metre long and 2-3" thick, with spikes all over its body like little needles, similar to a sea urchin, but shaped like a snake.

She is adamant it was not a sea slug or a peva or a tukuhali. She said her husband described it as similar to a snake. “We couldn't sleep!”

'Asena didn't want to be photographed but she came to the Matangi Tonga office today to show us the scratching on her son's leg, so other parents would be aware.

Meanwhile, Government offices including the Ministry of Fisheries were closed today for the holidays, so Matangi Tonga was unable to contact fisheries officers to check what type of sea creature this could be.

- Eleanor Gee.