Photo: David Clode / Unsplash
Though exceedingly rare, shark bites still manage to strike fear in the hearts of beach-goers everywhere. For one 12-year-old girl, the nightmare became a reality last week during a visit to a South Carolina beach.
The incident occurred on Hilton Head Island, located 45 miles northeast of Savannah, Georgia. On Tuesday, June 17, around 12:07 p.m., crews responded to a medical emergency near mile marker 24 in Sea Pines Beach, as a local dispatcher confirmed to USA Today.
“The incident involved a patient with a leg injury consistent with lacerations typically associated with a shark bite,” wrote a Hilton Head Island Fire Rescue official in a press release obtained by the news outlet. Dispatch audio obtained by WJCL then confirmed the victim was a 12-year-old girl. A first responder can be heard on the tape saying the victim had lost “a good amount of blood” and that the wound was located on the lower right leg, right below the kneecap. The victim’s identity has not been made public.
The girl was treated at the scene by Shore Beach Service and Hilton Head Fire-Rescue, then transported to Hilton Head Island Airport, where a medical helicopter flew her to Savannah, Georgia, for further treatment. CBS reported that her injuries are not life threatening.
This is the second time in less than a week a shark bit a young girl. Just six days earlier, Leah Lendel was snorkeling with her family in the waters off the coast of Boca Grande, Florida, when a shark partially severed her hand. The girl’s mother, Nadia, described hearing a scream, then looking over to see Leah’s right hand up to the wrist covered in blood and “mostly torn off.” Bystanders managed to fashion a tourniquet for her, after which Lendel was taken by helicopter to a Tampa hospital, where surgeons performed surgery on the hand.
“The doctors were able to do some miracles and put her hand back together,” Leah’s uncle Max Derinskiy told NBC News. “She will be in the hospital for a while and then a lot of physical therapy to hopefully get her hand functioning again.”
