A boogie boarder has been bitten by a shark in Texas.
Justin Culpepper was enjoying his Sunday by boarding in chest-deep water near three mile cut off Matagorda Beach on July 10, He was on his board between the first and second sandbar just before 4:30 p.m. when when he was bitten.
“He was one [expletive]-off shark. I must have stepped on him or something.” Culpepper told the Bay City Tribune.
Culpepper looked down and saw the sharks mouth wrapped around his right foot and lower leg. He said the unidentified species of shark would not let go and he ended up having to forcefully pull his leg out of the shark’s mouth.
As Culpepper was exiting the water, his wife Amber saw the bleeding wound and quickly wrapped a towel around it before dialing 911.
Both Sheriffs deputies and EMS were dispatched to the beach. As Culpepper was being treated on scene, he was told by EMS that he was extremely lucky his posterior tibia artery or Achilles tendon hadn’t been severed. Apparently, the bite had barely missed doing severe damage and if the bite had been up or down a fraction of an inch, Culpepper could have sustained serious and possibly life-threatening injury.
Culpper was transported to the Matagorda Regional Medical Center where he received 17 stitches. He currently has to use crutches to walk and cannot put weight on his injured leg, but he does plan on returning to work in about a week or so.
There have been a total of forty-eight shark attacks bites in 2016. Five of which were fatal. Twenty-one reported in the US, with thirteen occurring in Florida. Ten have occurred in Australia, three of which were fatal.
All locations have been marked on the 2016 shark attack bites tracking map.
