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Woman posing for photo with octopus bitten twice on the face

By Ben Hooper
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Aug. 7 (UPI) -- A Washington state woman participating in a fishing derby learned a valuable lesson when she posed for a photo with an octopus and the mollusk bit her on the face.

Jamie Bisceglia, founder of South Sound Salmon Sisters, said she was at the fishing derby in the Tacoma Narrows late last week when she encountered a group of fishermen who had landed a small octopus.

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"It was a photo contest in the derby. So, crazy me, hindsight now and looking back, I probably made a big mistake," Bisceglia told KIRO-TV.

Bisceglia put the octopus on her face to pose for the photo.

"I thought, this is pretty cool. It was a gorgeous, exotic creature, and I put it on my face and said take my picture. Then all of a sudden, they notice and I notice, my eyes just widened, and it had put its beak into my chin, not once but twice. It was like a barbed hook going into my skin," she told KING-TV.

Bisceglia said her chin was bleeding for a while after the bite.

"It was a really intense pain when it went inside and it just bled, dripping blood for a long time," she said.

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She said she continued fishing in the derby for two days before deciding to go to the emergency room for the pain she was continuing to feel from the bites. The octopus, believed to be a Pacific red octopus or a juvenile giant Pacific octopus, had injected Bisceglia with venom.

Busceglia said she has learned her lesson about handling potentially dangerous animals.

"And I'm still in pain," Bisceglia said. "I'm on three different antibiotics. This can come and go, the swelling, for months they say."

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