A 9-year-old girl snorkeling off the coast of Florida nearly lost her hand when a shark bit her in a harrowing attack, her family said Thursday.
Little Leah Lendel was in the water near Boca Grande with her parents and siblings at around noon Wednesday when the apex predator suddenly chomped down on her right hand — tearing it mostly off at the wrist, according to Gulf Coast News.
Her mother, who was four feet away holding her two toddlers in floaties, yelled for help as blood gushed from her daughter’s wound, the family said in a statement.
“Somebody [was] screaming, ‘Help, help, help!,’ Raynel Lugo, a nearby worker, told told WINK News. “It was like five kids on the water, mom and dad on the water, and I saw a shark right on top of the lady [and] little kid.”
Lendel’s father, who was swimming farther away, rushed to help his daughter to shore and good Samaritans then wrapped her hand in a tourniquet.
“She was walking outside with [her] hand out bleeding, like really bad. So [a co-worker] put a towel on it to stop the bleeding. And I called 911,” Lugo said.
The youngster was quickly air-lifted to a hospital in Tampa, where she underwent a six-hour surgery, and doctors were able to save her hand.
Leah’s uncle, Max Derinskiy, said the girl will likely remain in the hospital for a while and then undergo “a lot of physical therapy to hopefully get her hand functioning again,” according to NBC News.
Derinskiy has since set up an online fundraiser to help the family with medical bills.The attack was likely from a bull shark because it’s both mating season and “tarpon season” — meaning there’s an abundance of fish that the sharks eat in the area, naturalist Rob HowellBull told WINK News.
Bull sharks generally grow to 7 to 11 feet in length.
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