100-pound sailfish leaps out of water, stabs woman off Florida coast

STUART, Fla. - A 70-year-old woman was stabbed by a 100-pound sailfish that leaped out of the water and attacked her as her companions were trying to reel it in on a boat near the Florida coast, authorities said.

The sailfish stabbed Katherine Perkins, of Arnold, Maryland, in the groin area with its pointed bill on Tuesday while she was standing in the boat as two others, Louis Toth and Dominic Bellezza, tried to bring it in on a fishing line about two miles offshore from Stuart, Florida, according to a report from the Martin County Sheriff's Office.

Toth and Bellezza applied pressure to the wound, and Perkins was taken to Stuart for medical treatment.

Perkins told deputies that the attack happened so fast that she didn't have time to react, according to the sheriff's office report.

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Sailfish are among the fastest fish species in the ocean and, like the swordfish, are recognizable by their extended, pointed bills.