A fisherman was rushed to hospital with venom shooting up his arm after he was stung by a stingray landed on Herne Bay beach.

Blood poured from the wrist of the 28-year-old after he suffered a puncture wound as he tried to unhook the ray.

He abandoned his fishing gear and raced to a nearby doctors’ surgery, before being taken by ambulance to the QEQM hospital in Margate.

Michael Harris, 77, bumped into the injured angler as he waited to see a GP in Herne Bay.

“I was concerned for the lad because you could see he was in an awful lot of pain,” he said.

“He told me what had happened and said he could feel the venom going up his arm, through his veins.

“There was blood everywhere.

“The manager at the surgery called for an ambulance.”

Mr Harris collected the fisherman’s gear from the beach, where it had been left between the The Ship pub and the Kings Hall.

“The stingray was still hooked on the line,” Mr Harris said.

“It was probably about the size of a dinner plate.

“When I gave the fisherman his gear back he said he’d been treated with hot water and didn’t need any injections.

“I just hope that this can serve as a warning to other fishermen to be careful when landing a stingray.”

Australian wildlife expert and TV personality Steve Irwin was famously killed by a stingray after its barb pierced his heart in 2006.