Woman Walks Out Of Water With Shark Still Attached To Her Arm
BOCA RATON, Fla. (CBS4) — A beautiful day at the beach turned somewhat chaotic for a 23-year-old woman when, witnesses say, she calmly walked out of the water near Red Reef Park with a shark hanging from her arm.
Ocean Rescue Captain Clint Tracy says when crews arrived the nearly 2 foot shark was dead but maintained its grip.
"There was very little blood. She was calm," said Tracy. "They secured her to a splint on the stretcher with the shark and she went to Boca Raton Regional Hospital with the shark still attached to her arm."
A spokesperson for the Boca Raton Ocean Rescue told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel the woman remained calm and there was a little blood. A splint board was used to support the woman's arm and the shark as she lay on the stretcher.
Friends of the victim say doctors simply had to pull the shark off the woman's arm.
The Boca Raton Regional Hospital operator said that the woman had been treated and was in the process of being released Sunday afternoon.
George Burgess, the keeper of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History, told CBS12 in West Palm Beach that nurse sharks, "when they lash back, they're very persistent."
Burgess said there's been five unprovoked nurse shark attacks ever, and 52 provoked nurse shark attacks. "Nurse sharks are animals that are very quiet and docile."
"We believe it's a shark that has been in our park for some time," says Tracy. "While we have compassion for the victim, we are sad the shark is not going to be there anymore."
