An uneventful dip in the ocean turned into something else for a 23-year-old female when she was bitten by a nurse shark in Boca Raton in Florida – the shark not letting go of her arm.
Boca Raton Fire Rescue said that a call reporting a shark bite came in at around 1:20 p.m. Sunday. The 2-foot shark – which died before the fire rescue’s arrival – latched onto the victim’s forearm and would not let go, according to firefighters.
“It latched on pretty well,” recalled fire rescue spokesperson and inspector Robert Lemons, adding that the woman was not swimming too far from the shore.
Spectators saw that while already barely breathing, the shark was not letting go of the woman’s arm, clinging to her with its might. The woman, however, remained calm, was brought to Boca Raton Regional Hospital, and is now stable.
The involved animal is a nurse shark, which can grow up to 14 feet long and known for its strong jaws boasting thousands of tiny and serrated teeth. The National Park Service estimates that the range of these sharks in the Atlantic Ocean extends from Rhode Island to southern Brazil, comprising the Gulf of Mexico and the entire Caribbean.
"Knowingly or not, people swim near nurse sharks every day without incident," the National Park Service said, adding that while known, attacks on humans are quite rare and usually result from antagonizing the creature with a net or mere hand.
The shark’s tiny teeth are razor sharp but seldom deeply penetrate, and it could take a number of minutes for a re-immersed nurse shark to relax and “release its tormentor,” the agency explained.
Last year set a new record for the highest number of yearly shark attacks worldwide. Out of the 98 unprovoked attacks, 30 occurred in Florida.
Other attacks in the United States were recorded in North and South Carolina with eight each, Hawaii with seven, and others in California, Mississippi, New York, and Texas. The lone fatality in the country took place in Hawaii.
Photo: Reedz Malik | Flickr
