Hawaiian fisherman dies after swordfish he speared struck him in chest with its sharp bill

A Hawaiian fisherman died when a swordfish he had speared struck him in the chest with its sharp bill, officials said.

The man, a captain in the charter fishing business, on Friday morning saw the swordfish in the Honokohau small boat harbour and jumped into the water to catch it, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources said.

Witnesses said he speared the fish but it struck him in the chest with its spear-shaped bill, according to the department.

Onlookers pulled the unresponsive man out of the water and performed CPR until paramedics took him to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, the department said in a statement.

The man was not named in the statement but local television station KITV identified him as 47-year-old Randy Llanes.

"He was a tough guy, he was such a tough guy that everyone's scared of him, the whole harbour's scared of him," Kalina Llanes, the man's sister-in-law, said.