A BURNESIDE newly-wed has spoken of his brush with death after stepping on the world’s most poisonous fish.

Jamie Kelly was snorkelling off the coast of Mauritius when the spine of a deadly stone-fish speared his foot and injected him with a poison that is known to kill within hours.

“Within half an hour the pain was unbearable,” he said.

“It just kept spreading until my whole leg was swollen.

"Doctors told me I could have died if I hadn’t seen them so quickly.”

Medics on the Indian Ocean island quickly recognised his injury and injected him with anti-venom as his wife, also called Jamie, looked on.

The couple were near the end of their two week honeymoon after marrying at The Inn on the Lake Hotel, Glenridding.

“I’d been following a group of fish for a while and then stood up on the sand and felt a pin-prick on my toe,” said Mr Kelly.

“I looked under the water but couldn’t see anything but disturbed sand so I star-ted to walk back to the sun lounger.

"By the time I walked about 15 metres it was already seriously hurting.

“The hotel manager called an ambulance and at hospital they attached me to a drip and injected me with anti-venom.

"They kept me in overnight but the pain didn’t stop.”

The former Queen Katherine School pupil had to stay on the island for another two days until given clearance to fly home.

He added: “It spoiled the end of our honeymoon It was a nightmare.”

Masters of camouflage, stone-fish bury themselves in the sand and only attack if pressure is exerted on one of their 13 spinal spikes.

Last year a diving instructor on the Japanese Island of Okinawa died after stepping on one.

Mr Kelly, a self-employed tiler, is now being treated at Westmorland General Hospital where he has daily antibiotic injections.