An 81-year-old man is in a critical condition in Florida after a stingray leapt out of the Atlantic Ocean and embedded its poisonous barb in his chest.

James Bertakis was taking his grown-up granddaughter and her friend out for a boating trip off Lighthouse Point, 30 miles north of Miami, yesterday afternoon when the spotted eagle ray flew aboard his small dinghy.

In an accident reminiscent of the fatal stingray attack that killed the Australian naturalist, Steve Irwin, in September, the stingray's long barb lodged in Mr Bertakis's chest, collapsing his lung.

But Mr Bertakis remained conscious while his granddaughter turned the boat for the shore. They left the barb where it was. The stingray, which measured 1.5 metres across and weighed 13kg, died in the boat.

"It was a freak accident," said Lighthouse Point's acting fire Chief David Donzella. "It’s very odd that the thing jumped out of the water and stung him. We still can’t believe it."

Mr Bertakis might have to undergo open heart surgery to remove every piece of the barb because doctors fear that some of it may have broken off inside him. But the 81-year-old, who is described as extremely healthy for his age, is expected to survive.

Ellen Pikitch, a professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami, who has been studying stingrays for decades, said the fish are generally docile creatures and are very rarely seen leaping out of the water.

"Something like this is really, really extraordinarily rare," she said. "I’ve never heard any reports of a stingray attacking a person. Even when they are under duress, they don’t usually attack."

Irwin, 44, died moments after being stabbed in the heart by the sharp barb of a stingray during filming for a TV series, Ocean's Deadliest, while snorkelling in shallow waters off the Great Barrier Reef, off Queensland, on September 4.

His death -- thought to be only the third ever fatal stingray attack recorded in Australian waters -- was greeted by shock and sadness all over the world and prompted a brief spate of revenge attacks against the creatures, which are nicknamed the "pussycats" of the sea.

Times Recommends

• Experts baffled by vanishing sea lions
• CIA caught in a dirty and secretive war
• Double life of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab