Real Life

Woman rushed to hospital with nurse shark clinging to her arm

A Florida woman’s summer swim turned into a scene from jaws when she left the beach with a shark still attached to her arm.
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A 23-year-old woman, who wishes for her name to remain unknown, was rushed to Boca Raton Regional Hospital on Sunday after being bitten by a 2-foot-long [about 60cm] nurse in the shallow waters.

The mini-Jaws allegedly latched onto her right forearm after being spooked by snorkellers in the area. It is unclear whether the woman and her friends provoked the creature before it lashed out.

Boca Raton’s rescue team told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that the 23-year-old remained calm throughout the ordeal, despite the fact that the jawed-fish wouldn’t let go of her.

“The shark wouldn’t give up,” said onlooker Shlomo Jacob.

“It was barely breathing but it wasn’t letting go of her arm, like it was stuck to her or something.”

The woman, although flustered by this point having become one with a shark for an hour, was transported to Boca Raton Regional Hospital in stable condition.

The stuff of nightmares!

Alex Smoake, a friend to the woman updated People on the situation following the incident.

From the hospital, he shared a photo of her surrounded by the friends present. Finally separated from the shark’s toothy grip, she smiled up at the camera still clutching the shark that she fondly named ‘Greg’.

Poor Greg didn’t survive the ordeal having spent too much time out of the water, so Alex and his friends buried the creature at the local pet cemetery.

The friends gave Greg a proper send off.

Nurse sharks can grow up to 14-feet long and are known to be bottom-dwellers that rarely harm humans unless provoked.

Although an eyewitness from the beach claims that the woman and her friends were “holding the shark by its tail” and “messing with it”, Alex denies the claims, saying that “some kids scared the shark. It went one direction and when it turned it latched onto her arm.”

“We’re not going to try and do anything to a shark,” he says.

We feel like this right about now…

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