A shark bit Addison Bethea on Thursday while she was out scalloping in the waters off Keaton Beach in Florida.
The 17-year-old told CNN, “I didn’t really know what to do, but I knew that when you’re dealing with sharks, you’re supposed to punch them in the nose to get them off of you, and I couldn’t get around to punch him in the nose. I tried to latch it off of me with my fingers, but it bit my hand as I just started socking it in the face and poking its eyes.
Her firefighter/EMT brother Rhett Willingham responded to her cries for assistance.
He remarked, “I heard her make a noise, almost like she was scared.” I got up and looked, but I couldn’t find her. She then emerged from the water, and I immediately swam over to where the shark was and grabbed it by the tail.
Willingham said that after fending off the shark, he got his sister into another boat, put a tourniquet on her leg to stop the bleeding, and sped her back to land as quickly as he could.
The siblings spoke to CNN on Monday from a bed at the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, where Addison was receiving treatment for her wounds, and described the terrifying moments.
In a statement posted on social media, the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a child “had sustained a shark bite while scalloping near Grassy Island in water approximately five feet deep.” The shark, according to the office, was about 9 feet long.
According to a statement from Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, the bite caused “devastating damage to the soft tissue in her right leg” (TMH). According to hospital representatives, “the TMH trauma team stabilized her, and the trauma surgeon performed emergency surgery with a goal of restoring blood flow to her leg.”
Addison’s spirits didn’t seem to have been significantly affected by the wounds. The teen looked upbeat despite saying she would have her leg amputated above the knee on Tuesday while lying in her hospital bed surrounded by plush sharks.
It will ultimately make things much simpler, she said. To be honest, I’m eager for it. I’m sick of spending all my time in bed.
Everyone who knows me is aware of my sense of humor, so, yes, she admitted, “I just like stuffed sharks.” “I find it amusing. Just making fun of the circumstance.
Her father wrote on Facebook that she had been “cracking jokes about beating up the shark” and had been in good spirits.
She requested a Wendy’s frosty as her first request, he said. She has endured more than I could ever fathom, but she continues to be a trooper. Please offer her your prayers as she faces challenging days ahead. Although by no means out of danger, she is still alive, and that is what matters most to us.
“Definitely not something I ever expected to watch,” Willingham told CNN of the event, “but seeing her now, and how positive she is, is good to see.”
Addison was undeterred when it came to her future plans, and once she has recovered, she intends to return to the water.
A shark has always been present, she continued, it just so happened to attack me on that particular day. “I went 17 years without being attacked by a shark. I’m content to return.
