The happy dude in that pic right here is Ben Southall. Last spring his audition video took first place out of more than 34,000 submissions in the “Best Job in the world” video contest. His prize was to spend 6 months “working” as Tourism Queensland’s Islands Caretaker. Basically the lucky bastard was a paid spokesman and his biggest duty was blogging about his experiences in the islands around the great barrier reef.

Last week, during the final days of Ben’s 6 month gig, he was out jet-skiing when he was stung by some super-tiny but crazy-deadly jellyfish. He rushed right to the hospital and the doctor knew right away he had been zapped by a “Irukandji” and fixed him up. But it sounds like it was sort of a close call. Apprently at least two people in Australia have died from Irukandji stings since 2002. Again, that dude is one lucky bastard.

So Ben is fine and probably back to the real world now. You can read all about his jellyfish encounter on his Best Job in the World blog.  And hey, I found the video that got him his nearly-fatal gig.  Here it is:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnosVJfDrpY]