A Boca Raton, Florida woman with a shark still attached to her arm was rushed to the hospital. According to eyewitnesses, the 2-foot shark latched onto the woman’s forearm as she was swimming and refused to release it.
Here is a story you do not hear every day, a shark bit a woman while swimming on the shores of Boca Raton in Florida and it was still attached to her arm as she ran out of the ocean screaming for help.
On Sunday, a 23-year-old woman, whose identity has not been revealed, was the center of attraction on the sandy beach of Boca Raton.
According to several beachgoers, the woman rushed out of the ocean with a 2-foot nurse shark latched onto her forearm and it refused to release her.
A man tried to kill the shark, but it just would not die. The woman was loaded on a stretcher with a splint board supporting her arm and taken to Boca Raton Regional Hospital, with the shark still clamped onto her arm, she was treated and later released.
Capt. Clint Tracy, of the Boca Raton Fire and Rescue, told local media:
“It’s a shark that’s been in our park for sometime. And although we have compassion for the victim we’re also sad that the shark is not going to be there anymore.”
Tracy added:
“I have never seen anything like it. Never even heard of anything like this.”
Many swimmers told Tracy that the woman provoked the attack. She was seen antagonizing the small shark by “messing with it” and by holding it up by its tail. Jim Abernathy, a local shark expert, who gives dive tours along the coast, explained that the nurse shark was fighting back when it bit the woman. Abernathy said:
“I’m 99 percent sure that the person grabbed on its tail, and because the shark is only that big, it turned around and bit her right on the arm. The sad thing about all of this is the shark was minding its own business, got taken to a hospital [and] will be killed because someone pulled its tail.”
More about nurse sharks:
“The nurse shark has two rounded dorsal fins, rounded pectoral fins, an elongated caudal fin, and a broad head. Nurse sharks are brownish in color. Maximum adult length established by reliable reports is 3.08 m (10.1 ft); earlier reports of lengths up to 4.5 m (15 ft) and corresponding weights of up to 330 kg (730 lb) are likely to have been exaggerated.”
According to the International Shark Attack File, there were 98 unprovoked shark attacks around the world in 2015, which topped the previous record of 88 attacks in 2000. Last year, three out of ten shark attacks worldwide took place in Florida.
Boca Raton Fire Rescue says a 2-foot long nurse shark latched to 23-year-old female's arm. https://t.co/UUGtruFNXs pic.twitter.com/mcqkHOXLjp
— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) May 15, 2016
