Last updated: 6:40 am July 31, 2008 Posted: 3:31 am July 31, 2008
A Long Island fisherman has died after a freak accident in which a weighted lure hit him in the eye and lodged in his brain.
Jaime Chicas, 21, was angling on some rocks at Jones Beach at about 8 p.m. Friday when his line snapped back and a 3-ounce sinker recoiled violently, penetrating his eye socket and hitting his brain.
Chicas' brother-in-law Jose Gonzalez, was about 30 feet away when he heard Chicas groaning.
"We were just sitting there. It was pretty tranquil, kind of getting dark," Gonzalez told The Post. "We didn't see anything, but then my cousin and I both heard him groaning. We ran to him and he was down, lying on the rocks."
"There was so much blood. We could see something had gone in his eye."
Chicas was pronounced brain dead Tuesday at Nassau University Medical Center.
He leaves behind a baby and a 19-year-old wife in El Salvador. He had come to the United States illegally about a year ago and was looking for work in Long Island.
