This is the agonising moment a swimmer emerged from the sea with her arm impaled by a catfish’s venomous spine.

Video footage shot in Cartagena on Colombia’s Caribbean coast shows the shocked swimmer with the fish’s spiny dorsal fine embedded in her bicep.

As a crowd of beachgoers surrounds her the woman can be seen holding up the catfish with her left hand apparently to make sure the spine does not break off.

Moments earlier the woman, who has not been named in local media, had emerged from the surf with an incredible pain in her right arm.

Catfish fins can contain long, venom-tipped spines and cause painful swelling and rapid bleeding when they pierce the skin.

And if they break off they they can become infected and cause flesh necrosis under the skin.

Local media reports say beach workers rushed the swimmer to Bocagrande Hospital. After carefully removing the fish’s spine from her arm.

City police say she is recovering well.