Wiped out by a whale: Boy, 13, knocked unconscious after being hit by whale's tail

When 13-year-old Drew Hall set out on a fishing boat with his parents he didn't expect to end up in hospital after being knocked unconscious by a whale's tail.

The family had set out in their small boat from Brooms Head, in northern New South Wales, and spent a short time watching whales further out to sea blowing air from their blowholes.

As they cruised along looking for a better fishing spot a whale's tail suddenly emerged from the water and swept along the top of the boat from bow to stern.

'It all happened within seconds,' Drew's mother, Mrs Karen Hall, said today.

'I was sitting backwards in the boat looking at Drew and the tail just whacked him and sent him flying into the boat.'

She told the Daily Examiner newspaper that the tail smashed the windscreen on the boat's cabin and narrowly missed her.  'I thought Drew was dead.   I looked at him and thought he was gone - he was blue. He was totally unconscious.'

She said it took about five minutes before she and her husband could get Drew to move but even when he did come round he was slipping in and out of consciousness as they sped the boat back to shore.

The teenager was met by paramedics and rushed to Maclean Hospital for treatment.

Powerful: The massive whale tail also smashed the windscreen of the boat's cabin

He had suffered a broken collarbone and also had a large lump on his chest and an egg-sized swelling on his head.

'He did manage to catch two rock cod before this happened,' Mrs Hall told the paper.

Drew doesn't remember anything of the incident.

What he does know now is that 'I got sent flying - I broke my collarbone and got knocked out for 30 or 40 minutes.' He told Channel 7 news: 'From there, I can't remember anything and then when we got to the boat ramp I remember the paramedics shining a light in my eye.

'I can remember seeing my brother and another person standing above me.  'Apparently I wasn't looking too good. I was really black and I wasn't really with it.' He said he was 'a bit sore - but I'm all right'.

He has vowed to go fishing again as soon as he can.

'Really, all I do is just fish and play cricket.'