"Could Have Been A Steve Irwin": 16-cm Stingray Barb Pierces Woman's Arm

A 68-year-old woman from Minlaton almost died after a 16-cm (6-inch) stingray barb pierced her arm while she was snorkelling in South Australia.

On Friday morning, Pam Bennett and a group of four were snorkelling off the southern Yorke Peninsula in South Australia as part of a marine biodiversity study when the stingray struck, ABC reported.

At Treasure Cove on the southern Yorke Peninsula, Ms Bennett was snorkelling 50 metres offshore when a stingray attacked her from behind and pierced her arm with a dinner plate-sized barb.

The X-ray of her arm injuries shocked her. Ms Bennett claimed she could have easily suffered the same terrible fate as Steve Irwin.

According to ABC, Ms Bennett and three other researchers were surveying the marine life on the harbour after an unusually high number of fish deaths in the area when the stingray approached them.

Ms Bennett said she "swam out of the way" after realising she was over the top of a stingray.

"I didn't see that stingray; he approached from behind. He had attacked. That's not their normal behaviour," Ms. Bennett told the outlet.

"It wasn't long after that that I felt the barb go into my arm," she added.

She said her fellow snorkelers put her on her back and floated her to shore, adding that "blood was spurting out" from her wound near her right elbow.

Ms Bennett was taken to Yorketown Hospital, where she had the barb removed. She was later transported to Adelaide.

"I was simply astounded by the X-ray. It depicted a dagger entering at my elbow and exiting nearly beneath my arm," she remarked.

"I could have been a Steve Irwin," Ms Bennett told ABC, alluding to the late conservationist who died from a stingray attack in 2006 aged 44.

Ms Bennett, who has been snorkelling for years, called the stingray activity something "no one will have heard of," as per 7NEWS.

Despite the horrific attack, Ms Bennett still finds stingrays to be "beautiful, gentle, passive creatures that sit on the ocean floor and mind their own business while you mind your own business."