A shark attack took place in Florida over the weekend, but the 11-year-old girl who was bitten in the leg survived to tell the tale and even got to keep a souvenir.
Riley Breihan was boogie boarding in knee-deep water at WinterHaven Park in Ponce Inlet on Saturday when she felt something bite her lower leg. She immediately thought that it was a shark, WKMG Local 6 reports.
"At first I wasn't thinking about pain, I was thinking I got bit by a shark and I have to go to the emergency room," she told Florida's WKMG Local 6. "Then I felt the sting and it hurt real bad."
The animal bit the girl twice. It got her in the lower leg and on the feel. Some stranger nearby witnessed the attack and jumped into action. They wrapped her leg in a towel and rushed her to their car to take her to the hospital.
Once at the hospital, doctors found that the shark had left a tooth behind in one of the bites. Breihan received stitches and is expected to make a full recovery, but she says she probably won't go into the water again anytime soon.
"I don't think I would go back in the water just because I'm going to wait," she told WKMG.
Not everyone was as lucky as Breihan. A 20-year-old tourist from Germany was attacked by a shark that bit off her arm while she was snorkeling in Maui. She later died from her injuries. No one has died in a shark attack in Hawaii since 2004, when a tiger shark bit Willis McInnis in the leg while he was surfing about 100 yards off on Maui, He suffered severe blood loss and died on the shore. No one died before that since 1992.
According to the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, seven people died from shark attacks around the world in 2012.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
