THE seven-year-old girl was just one of thousands in the water of the mighty River Parana on the afternoon of Christmas Day last week.
For residents of the central Argentine city of Rosario, the festive season most certainly does not involve eating mince pies and drinking eggnog before sleeping it off in front of a fire.
Instead, with the mercury hitting a sticky 100 degrees, most are keener to cool off than to gorge themselves.
The best place for a dip is the city’s Rambla Catalunya, a mile-long stretch of sandy beach on South America’s second largest river.
With bars, restaurants and fun fairs, the beach is a major attraction and last Wednesday was no exception.
Tens of thousands had gathered to enjoy the holiday.
Many took the opportunity to swim or paddle in the river.
That afternoon, as the little girl splashed up to her waist in the waters, everything seemed quite normal.
Then, she suddenly felt a tugging at the little finger of her left hand.
Instinctively, she pulled away, but the tugging grew more powerful.
And then came a searing pain that caused her to cry out.
She looked down at her finger, but all she could see was a trail of blood leaking into the dark water.
As she ran for the shore, her screams startled the sunbathers.
The top part of the girl’s finger had been completely torn away. There could be no doubt what had happened.
The girl had been attacked by one of man’s most feared creatures — the deadly piranha fish.
Word quickly spread up and down the Rambla Catalunya.
Lifeguards ordered people to stay out of the water but, tragically, the heat was so intense and the atmosphere so jubilant that people continued to swim.
What happened next was like a scene from a horror film.
That afternoon, some 70 people — around 20 of them children, were savaged by shoals of the razor-toothed fish.
Those who were attacked had chunks of their naked and exposed flesh ripped away.
They emerged from the waters with agonising wounds dripping blood onto the white sand.
Deep cuts were reported on scores of fingers, ankles and toes. One injury resulted in an amputation.
Pictures taken in the local hospital show one man with the whole underside of one toe missing.
The attack was the most serious in the city since 2008, when 40 swimmers were hurt and, while mercifully no one was killed, the story made headlines around the world.
There is something about this sinister fish that preys on our imaginations.
Along with great white sharks, wolves, pythons and crocodiles, the piranha is the stuff of nightmares.
Ever since Boy’s Own adventure stories described game hunters and explorers being devoured after daring to swim in piranha-infested waters, we have been taught that the piranha is one of the deadliest predators on the planet.
Most of us can create a horrific mental image of falling into a river — and being stripped to the bone in two minutes by a boiling shoal of flesh-eating fish.
Just such a fate was memorably portrayed in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, when the evil Blofeld dispatched Helga Brandt into a tank of piranhas for her failure to kill Bond.
