A Brazilian surfer is fighting for his life in a Costa Rican intensive care unit after a needlefish leapt from the sea and pierced his heart, in a freak accident that has stunned the international surfing community.
Fabiano Duarte da Costa, 42, was riding the long, rolling swells off Playa Pavones on Thursday, May 21, 2026, when the fast-moving fish hurtled out of the water and drove its razor-sharp bill into his chest. The impact perforated his thorax and reached his heart, according to reports from Costa Rica.
His wife, Priscila Carlesso, said the attack unfolded in an instant. “Fabiano went surfing and everything turned upside down – a needlefish pierced his heart,” she said.
A Doctor on the Sand
What happened next may have saved his life. A German doctor who happened to be on the beach sprinted to the wounded surfer and began emergency first aid on the sand, stabilizing him before paramedics could arrive at the remote stretch of coastline. Family members credit the chance encounter with keeping Duarte da Costa alive long enough to reach a hospital.
From the beach, he was airlifted roughly 220 miles north to San Jose, the Costa Rican capital, where surgeons performed delicate emergency heart surgery. He has since been brought out of an induced coma and remains in intensive care, described by doctors as serious but stable and expected to survive.
“He dedicated his life to the sea – now we need help to bring him home,” Carlesso said.
A Life Built Around the Water
Duarte da Costa is a familiar figure on the southern Brazilian coast. A physical education teacher and canoe instructor based in Itajaí, in the state of Santa Catarina, he leads the Hawaiian canoe base Kaikala and is well known among the country’s outrigger paddling community. His family lives in nearby Balneário Camboriú, more than 4,000 miles from the hospital bed where he is now recovering.
The trip to Pavones was supposed to be a surf getaway to one of Central America’s most coveted breaks, a stretch of Costa Rica’s southern Pacific shore famed for producing some of the longest left-hand waves in the world. Instead, it has left his wife coordinating his care from another continent and friends scrambling to fund his return.
An online fundraiser launched through the Vakinha platform by friends and relatives is seeking donations to cover the mounting medical bills, his ongoing ICU stay and an eventual medical transfer back to Santa Catarina to continue treatment.
The Fish That Strikes Like a Spear
Known in Brazil as the peixe-agulha, or agulhão, the needlefish is built like a living javelin. Its long, slender body ends in a narrow, sharply pointed beak that resembles its namesake. Found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world, the species typically poses no threat to humans — but its hunting style makes it unpredictable.
Needlefish swim near the surface at high speed and routinely launch themselves clear of the water, particularly when chasing smaller prey or fleeing a perceived threat. Researchers have clocked them at roughly 40 mph, or 60 kph, in flight. They are not aggressive, but a collision at those speeds can drive their beak deep into flesh — sometimes with catastrophic results.
Marine biologists have long warned that needlefish strikes, while rare, can be among the most dangerous wildlife encounters in the open ocean precisely because the animals strike like projectiles rather than predators.
An Echo of Another Tragedy
The accident in Costa Rica carries chilling parallels to a death less than two years ago. In October 2024, Italian surfer Giulia Manfrini, 36, was killed when a needlefish struck her in the chest as she surfed in the Mentawai Islands off Indonesia’s West Sumatra coast. The wound proved fatal despite frantic efforts to save her, and her business partner described the incident as a “freak accident.”
That case, widely covered in international media, briefly drew attention to the obscure but lethal risk the fish can pose. It had largely faded from public conversation until Duarte da Costa was struck.
For now, his family is focused on a single goal: getting him stable enough to fly home. Each day in the San Jose ICU brings encouraging signs — he is conscious, his vitals are holding, his surgical wound is healing — but also a steeper bill and a longer wait. Doctors have not said when he might be cleared for the long journey back to Santa Catarina.
His wife, in a message accompanying the fundraiser, returned again to how quickly an ordinary morning in the surf had turned into a fight for survival — a life, she said, that “changed in seconds.”