A mother from Tennessee was severely injured while participating in the “Dolphin Royal Swim” at Dolphin Cove, Jamaica, on Sunday (March 16). The experience allows people to be “towed by two friendly Dolphins or feel the energy of these social marine mammals while they foot-push you to then splash into the water at maximum speed.”
The accident occurred while the dolphins were pushing Cierra Stockard into a standing position. She became unbalanced and fell because the dolphins were swimming at different speeds. As she crashed into the water, she struck one of the dolphins’ fins.
“It felt like I was in a car accident because it hit me super hard,” Stockard told Good Morning America. “I started panicking. It did knock the wind out of me.”
After she fell into the water, the dolphins swam over and tried to help her.
“They came and rubbed against me and stopped their bodies from swimming to be right beside me,” Stockard explained.
She was pulled from the water and rushed to the hospital, where she underwent surgery for a grapefruit-sized hematoma, a type of blood clot caused by a broken blood vessel. Stockard, who has sickle cell anemia, spent eight days in the Jamaican hospital before she was transferred to a hospital in Tennessee for further treatment.
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