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Woman Impaled by Barracuda Tells Dramatic Story

A Florida woman is lucky to be alive after a bizarre incident while she and her boyfriend were kayaking in the Florida Keys. A fish jumped out of the water, hitting her so hard it broke her ribs and collapsed a lung.

She struggled to breathe and was in desperate need of medical attention.

On "The Early Show," CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reported on the terrifying, almost deadly turn the excursion of Karri Larson and boyfriend Michael Hinojosa took last October.

In a 911 call, Larson's boyfriend can be heard saying, "Yes, I've got an emergency. My girlfriend's been hit by a flying fish. I think it was a barracuda or something."

First thought to be a needlefish, Larson says it was a barracuda that attacked her out of nowhere.

She saw it jump out of the water twice, and on the third jump, it dove toward the couple's boat and hit her on the side.

Hinojosa said on the call, "It came diving past the kayak, and hit her broadside, knocked her out of the boat and she's got, like, broken ribs and punctured lungs."

The operator asks, "She has a punctured lung?"

Hinojosa said, "Yes, sir. I have my hand holding her lungs closed."

Another operator responds, "Ok, sir, I need to know where you're gonna come in to."

"I'm holding her ribs with one hand," he responds. "I cannot paddle this kayak anywhere right now. I need you guys to come to me."

Getting to them would be no easy task in the Florida backwaters. Towboat owner Kevin Freestone volunteered to help search. He spoke to Hinojosa on the phone.

Freestone told CBS News, "He knew exactly what to tell me and he told me, he said, 'You need to get here as quick as you can. You need to save a life today."'

It had been about 30 minutes since the original 911 call, and time was running out.

Freestone explained, "We were going around the corner of this island. It's all mangroves. We were gonna see them soon see them soon see them soon all of a sudden, there it was -- orange kayak."

As Larson clung to life, she was transported back to the marina, then airlifted to a Miami hospital and taken straight to the intensive care unit.

Larson survived, but remained in the Intensive Care Unit for nine days, recovering from a shattered rib and a punctured lung.

In an exclusive "Early Show" interview Monday, Karri Larson and Michael Hinojosa, of Big Pine, Fla., and Kevin Freestone, of TowBoatUS, shared the story of what happened that day.