Former Hawke's Bay detective and veteran diver Rick Graham has seen the good and bad sides of stingrays. He's had his arm ripped open by one while diving off Tangoio and seen kids riding stingrays off the Poor Knights. The attack on him, when he was diving for crayfish in shallowwater north of Stingray Bay more than 20 years ago, came without warning. "I didn't see it. All of a sudden I felt a whack on my arm. "I thought it was a shark ... I saw this dark thing taking off." But he has a big warning about stingray riding: it shouldn't be tried unless you know what you're doing - and wear gloves. When he was attacked, he grabbed his left arm and his fingers went into the wound through the holes that had pierced his wetsuit, between the elbow and the wrist. "The bloody thing made two holes in the sleeve of my new wetsuit and I thought 'that's a bit nasty'," he said. "But I didn't let go of the crayfish." He walked a kilometre to his vehicle and drove to Napier Hospital. After having about nine stitches inserted internally, he had to return to the hospital daily for the wound to be cleansed. "There's no venom in the tail but the grooves carry a lot of slime and muck," he said.
