The nice Maui day on Wailea Beach was an unusual day for me. It was a normal day on Maui where my family and I were at the beach enjoying ourselves. My younger brother and I were playing football, my dad and my brother were boogie boarding, and my mom was resting on the beach chair. When my brother threw the ball over my head and it landed in the rough water, I went after it not knowing what was going to happen in the next 60 seconds. I got the ball, sat in the water for a couple of seconds, then suddenly I felt a sting on my lower body and arms, and saw a tiny figure float away.

Seconds later I ran out of the water and started screaming “MOM!” At that time I didn’t care if anyone saw me crying because I had never felt this much pain in my entire life. The pain was so bad that it was like a car hitting my body. So my mom sat me down and started asking me questions about what happened. So I told her what had happened and then an older gentlemen came to my mom and me and looked at my body and said, “You got stung by a jellyfish or a man of war.”

I replied, “A man of war, what’s that?”

He said, “Something similar to a jellyfish but hurts a lot more.” He then suggested for us to go to the nearest hotel and go to the lifeguards there and tell them what had happened. So my mom and I went to the went to the lifeguards. They quickly grabbed some vinegar and sprayed the areas where it hurt and told me to stick my body into the jacuzzi to burn off all of the bad bacteria. After 15 minutes the pain finally went away. I then for the next couple of weeks had to clean my body with vinegar to keep the pain away.

For the next couple of years I would have some scars on my legs and wrists where it would remind me of that day that many people will never experience in their life. This incident was a positive thing and a negative thing because when I came back to school that following year it was pretty cool to show my scars from the stinging to all of my classmates which they thought was pretty cool and they also felt bad for me at the same time. It was a bad experience because I do not ever want to go through that pain again and it  gave my parents a slight heart attack because I was very young and they didn’t know what kind of pain I was in. I can remember the day like it was yesterday. Coming back to Wailea beach every year always reminds me of that day when I got stung and having scars to prove it.