An eight-year-old boy was bitten by a nurse shark in the Bahamas.
Henry Kreckman was playing in the water with his brother when they spotted a nurse shark in 3 ½ feet of water.
The boys were watching the shark when an unidentified man in his 20’s grabbed the shark by the tail and lifted it out of the water. He then invited the boys in to “pet” the flailing shark.
Henry’s father Clint told The Wisconsin State Journal the shark “flipped out of his (the man’s) hands and attached itself to Henry’s chest.”
“I heard Henry screaming ‘get it off me, get it off me,’ I stand up and my friend goes running up the beach yelling ‘shark bite’ and I go running into the water.” Henry’s mom Sara said.
The man who picked up the shark pulled it off Henry’s chest and picked him up and began carrying him to the beach.
“at that point there was blood and it looked a lot worse than what it really was.” Mr. Kreckman said
Medical personnel from the resort rushed the young man to a medical station and called an ambulance. The ambulance proved unnecessary as the wound was minor.
Mrs. Kreckman who is a pediatrician said “the shark made a perfect hole in Henry’s Under Armour shirt” and it left a “triangle bruise the size of a tennis ball and puncture wounds at the top and at the bottom. “
Nurse sharks have a suction bite where they suck prey into their mouths. They have small teeth perfectly suited for their normal diet of mollusks, stingray and Crustaceans.
They have been known to bite humans, but normally only when provoked.
Henry’s bruise had almost healed by the time they arrived back in Oregon.
The man who picked up the shark left the area shortly after Henry was taken out of the water.
The incident occurred on March 26, 2016 and the approximate location has been marked on the 2016 shark attack bites map.
