A Florida worker is healing up after being bitten by a nurse shark that refused to let go.
Andres Garcia was working on a concrete dock in Key Largo Sept. 29, when the small shark grabbed his foot.
Garcia thinks he may have stepped on it or put his right foot near the shark’s mouth which prompted the bite.
Coworkers tried pulling, shaking and even using a hammer to open the shark’s jaw with a hammer, but nothing worked.
After about 15 minutes Garcia was able to pry the shark’s jaws off his foot and head to the hospital where he received 16 stitches.
This is not the first time a nurse shark has locked onto a person.
An unidentified man had a similar encounter off Jenson Beach, Florida Aug. 30.
The 3- to 4-foot long shark had a death grip on the man’s arm. Emergency personnel took the man to the hospital where the shark was removed.
Ervin McCarty had a similar encounter Sept. 2, 2017 off Marathon City in the Florida Keys.
McCarty swam down to remove a speared grouper that had become lodged in a hole when a small nurse shark bit and latched onto his abdomen.
He struggled to remove the shark but as with the other cases, it did not release its bite. Eventually someone from the group used a knife to slice into the shark’s gills.
It finally released its grip when it was eviscerated, but did bite McCarty one last time.
Another incident occurred in 2016 off Boca Raton, Florida.
A 23-year-old was bitten on the right forearm by a small nurse shark.
Initial reports stated several people were harassing the shark before it grabbed hold of the woman’s arm.
She was taken to the hospital with the shark still attached to her arm.
While nurse sharks are relatively harmless, they should not be harrassed or molested.
The most recent bite locations have been marked on the 2020 Shark Attack Map.
