He put his feet in the ocean. Thirty minutes later, they were covered in blood.

Thirty minutes: that’s how long Sam Kanizay, a 16-year-old from Australia, spent dipping his legs in a local beach.

When he got out of the water, he noticed something covering his legs.

"I walked out and saw what I thought was sand covering my calf and shook it off, and by the time I'd walked across the sand …. I looked down and noticed I had blood all over my ankles," he told 3AW Radio.

Kanizay said the blood was difficult to get off his legs, and that it “came back pretty quickly.”

“It sort of looked like hundreds of little pinholes or pin-sized bites distributed all over my ankle and the top of my foot.”

Kanizay, who was rushed to the hospital, is believed to have come in contact with some type of “flesh-eating bug,” according to Telegraph.

The teen’s injuries surprised doctors and scientists, according to The New York Times.

The leading theory was that Kanizay probably came in contact with sea lice, which are usually parasites of fish. When they bite humans, they usually leave little red dots that can look like a rash.

But there are other possibilities as well.

Jeff Weir, executive director of the Dolphin Research Institute, suspects the creature responsible is likely a shrimp-like crustacean.

His proof? He had a similar experience to Kanizay when he was on a night dive.

"It was very cold, probably, about this time of year,” he said, “and when I got out of the water I realised my forehead was bleeding and parts of my cheeks were bleeding.”

Michael Brown, a marine expert, said that Kanizay could have become an unwitting snack for jellyfish larvae.

“I’ve been doing this for coming on 20 years now and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he told Channel Seven.

Jarrod Kanizay, the teen’s father, decided to take the investigation into his own hands, dropping a chunk of raw steak in water near the location of his son’s attack.

On video, he caught hundreds of miniscule sea creatures devouring the steak — but it’s uncertain if these are the culprits responsible for Sam Kanizay’s injuries.

“What is really clear is these little things really love meat,” he said.

Dr. Genefor​ Walker-Smith, a museum marine scientist, examined the creatures captured by Kanizay’s father, saying the creatures are actually sea fleas — and not sea lice.

Dr. Walker-Smith confirmed that these creatures can feast on human flesh, but it is incredibly rare to receive injuries on the scale that Kanizay did, according to The Age. She said that the teen likely had a cut on his foot that attracted the creatures to him, or he possibly stepped near a dead fish carcass where they were feeding.

But she doesn’t recommend shutting down the beach.

"I think this is quite a rare thing,” she said. “I really just think [Sam] was in the wrong place at the wrong time, probably."

This story was originally published August 7, 2017 at 8:16 AM with the headline "He put his feet in the ocean. Thirty minutes later, they were covered in blood.."