A woman has been bitten by a shark off Awendaw, South Carolina.
Mackenzie Higgins, 20, was fishing with her family on Bull Island May 31, when her brother landed an Atlantic sharp nose shark that was about 3 1/2 feet long. He was holding the creature by its tail when his sister, a nursing student, reached out to feel the shark’s back. In a flash, the shark spun around and sank its teeth into her right hand just below the thumb.
“They’re strong, and their body is like one big muscle,” Mackenzie told the Chronicle Independent.
“My brother dropped the shark, so it was just hanging from my hand. I shook my hand — like shaking hands with someone — and it finally dropped off,” she recalled.
Related: What to do if you come face to face with a shark.
Her fiancé, Rob Wall, and her mother quickly put pressure on her wrist to stem the bleeding. The family then loaded her into their boat and sped to shore. A Good Samaritan at Avendaw Landing helped load the boat and prayed for Mackenzie.
Rob Wall, who had proposed to Mackenzie May 27, rushed her to Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital, where she was admitted. Doctors found the bite had damaged a nerve, punctured one artery and a severed another. The emergency surgery took a little over an hour. After a 30-minute recovery, Mackenzie was released.
“The healing process is going well. Lots of antibiotics, very little pain, and a lot of aggravation from the bandages, but other than that, it’s great!” she told Tracking Sharks.
There have been 47 reports of shark bites on humans worldwide in 2017, five of which have been fatal.* Twenty-one shark bites were reported in the U.S., with 15 in Florida** and one in Hawaii. Nine bites were reported in Australia, only one of which was fatal. Three unconfirmed bites worldwide were not included in the total count.
All locations have been marked on the 2017 Shark Attack Bites Tracking Map.
*Two may be scavengers
**One report may have been outside of Florida waters.
Updated 06/05/17
All photos supplied.
