[Sanders]

I have some stories about the giant groupers that live around oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

One involves a diver and a grouper they say was the size of a Volkswagon Beetle. The guys who dove near it, say you could hear it breathing - the water going in through its gills. Grouper normally just leave you alone, but are very territorial and not easily scared. This one just watched the divers working on the platform, and would occasionally bump into them just to let them know he was there.

Well, I guess one diver looked a little more interesting than the others, because the grouper decided to taste his leg. He didn't bite him. Just sucked the guy's leg into its cavernous maw. It freaked the diver out so badly, he called to be pulled up, missed his decompression stops. Came up and went right into the decompression chamber and was treated for the bends (automatic protocol for missed decompression stops), which was a 24 hr. treatment in the chamber.

He got on the next crewboat back to the beach and never dove again.