WILDWOOD, Fla. -- A man riding a pe...

WILDWOOD, Fla. -- A man riding a personal watercraft was injured after a 4-foot-long sturgeon bounded out of the water and hit him.

Blake Nicholas Fessenden 23 was forward the Suwannee River on Sunday when he was hit and hew down off the craft, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Fessenden was knocked unconscious.

His girlfriend was riding another watercraft behind him and was able to realize to Fessenden and hold his head above water before passengers onward another vessel arrived to shake him from the water, officials said. He was airlifted to a Gainesville hospital with non- life-threatening injuries.

A 31-year-old woman was hospitalized in April after a 3-foot- protracted sturgeon jumped into a boat she was in forward the Suwannee River.

Officials at the time said similar accidents arise once or twice a year forward the river.

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