A woman was bitten by a shark at South Padre Island, Texas.
The unidentified woman was in roughly knee-deep water off Bougainvillea beach access 14 on September 2.
As she was walking through the water, a shark grabbed her left foot.
She saw the estimated 3- to 4-foot shark and was able to pull her foot from its mouth.
Beach Patrol members responded to the call shortly before 6 p.m.
“The water’s been flat,” said South Padre Island beach patrol director Jim Pigg. “We get lots of stingrays and had stingray calls that day. The call came in as a possible marine bite with a laceration to the foot.
“A lot of times when people get stung, they bleed, so we responded with emergency traffic as always. When we got there, we could tell right away it wasn’t a stingray.”
The woman had teeth marks on the top of her foot and deep lacerations on the bottom, possibly from where she pulled her foot from the shark’s mouth.
Beach patrol members transported the woman to a waiting ambulance, and she was taken to the hospital for treatment of the large laceration on the bottom of her foot.
It’s not uncommon to see sharks in the area.
“All the stingrays come in, and the sharks come in to feed on them,” Pigg, who has lived in the area for 17 years, said. He added this is the first confirmed shark attack that he is aware of in the area over the past 12 years.
There have been a total of 74* shark attack bites in 2017, five of which were fatal*; 36 were reported in the US, with 23 occurring in Florida** and one in Hawaii. Ten occurred in Australia, one of which was fatal and one with no injury. Five unconfirmed worldwide and were not included in the total count.
All locations have been marked on the 2017 Shark Attack Bites Tracking Map.
*Two may be scavenge. **One report may have been outside of Florida waters.
