Teen loses leg after shark attack in Florida

A teenager who survived a shark attacknear Tallahassee, Florida, is now facing surgery to amputate one leg. 

17-year-old Addison Bethea from the nearby city of Perry was scalloping in the shallows off the coast of Keaton Beach when a shark suddenly approached and bit her on Thursday. Neither authorities nor witnesses could identify the species of shark that attacked Bethea, but those who saw it later estimated that the animal was approximately 9 feet long.

Bethea will undergo an amputation scheduled for Tuesday, and after a shark gets caught on the top of her right leg, CBS MiamiReported by  . Bethea details the incident in a recent interview at the hospital currently being treated, and how he dodged the shark and urgently after his brother firefighter Let Willingham took the shark safely. Explained if you provided medical support. 

"We were scalloping for about 2 hours and went to the last place, apparently in about 15 minutes, the boat and I It felt like a pull. " Later, Bethea remembered trying to hit the shark's nose, but he said he couldn't because of its "strange position."

"Then we were in 6 feet of water, so it tried to drag me into the water," she added.

Willingham told CBS Miami when she heard her sister scream, she was about eight feet away from Bethea. "Something about her sounded scared her, so I stood up to look back and see what was happening," he said. "And she was in the water, then she came back, and there was blood around her, and I saw a shark."

Before he moved the shark to the boat and applied a preliminary tourniquet to the injured leg to reduce blood loss, Bethea from the shark's bunker. Was collected. Her brother's mother, Michele Murphy, praised Willingham and called her daughter's survival a "miracle."

"My daughter, by medical standards, shouldn't live now. I know that," Murphy said. "It was a miracle that she survived this, and whether Lett was with her when it happened, I think we may now be in a very different scenario. I know. "

Bethea faces a long recovery, but teens are optimistic about eventually returning to the water.

"Don't be afraid of the sea," she said. "A lot of people commented on Instagram that they are afraid of the sea now." But when I'm healed and better, I'm still going into the sea. I'm still going to do what I like, just don't allow fear to overtake your life.

Thursday's attack is one of the latest in alarming patterns of similar incidents. Shark attacksincreased globally in 2021 and decreased for several consecutive years, recording more in the United States than in any other country. Approximately 40% of the 73 unprovoked shark bites reported worldwide were due to an incident in Florida. In contrast, the National Weather Serviceestimates that about 270 people are hit by lightning strikes each year in the United States.