Shark Bite Victim To Surf Again

Attacked While Surfing; Expected To Make Full Recovery

(CBS)  Just a day after being attacked by a giant shark while surfing off northern California, Megan Halavais said she has every intention of going back to surfing.

Halavais described her ordeal during a news conference at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Thursday, reports Hattie Kauffman.

She told reporters, "I looked back and it was like, huge, straight out of 'Jaws.' … (It) came up from behind me, (then,) chomp!

"I just turned right away, and I was like, 'Shark!' It was huge. It was like twice the size of me. Huge fin, like, the fin was as tall as me."

Halavais, 20, was surfing about a mile north of Bodega Bay, Calif. Wednesday when the shark struck.

"It wasn't like, 'I have to fight for my life,' " she continued. "It was like, 'Whoa, ahh, what's going on?' … I barely remember. I remember grabbing the shark. I don't remember going underwater."

Friends surfing nearby saw her vanish.

"We we charging in ... slapping the water and screaming at the shark: 'Hey, no, no, no," David Bryant told the assembled media.

Bryant, who was only a few feet away, told The Early Show Wednesday, "The shark actually pulled her underwater, and there was no sign of her board or her. At that point my heart sank. I thought. 'Oh my god. I mean, is that the last time we're going to see her?' "

"We all started paddling toward her right away," lifeguard Brit Horn said in a separate interview. "She popped up, screaming."

Friends helped pull Halavais to shore. She was airlifted to a nearby hospital. Her leg had nearly been severed.

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