A woman was flown to Miami from the lower Keys over the weekend after she was wounded by a jumping fish while kayaking off Big Pine Key.
Karri Larson, 46, and a friend were kayaking Sunday evening when the fished jumped out of the water and bit her in the chest.
A Coast Guard rescue crew used a small boat to ferry a paramedic into the shallow water to reach Larson. She was then transferred to the boat and taken to a nearby marina. Once on shore Larson was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital where she’s listed as stable in the ICU.
The Coast Guard initially said Larson, who suffered several broken ribs and a punctured lung, was bitten by a barracuda. But Bobby Dube with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission doubts that. He told The Miami Herald that Larson had a puncture would and that barracuda have sharp teeth that cut like a knife. He said the type of wound was inconsistent with barracuda teeth.
A shark bit a 27-year-old Georgia man on his hand Tuesday as he was swimming at the beach near Dondanville Road.
Jason Whitworth was body surfing in the water with his mother in front of the Ocean Gallery Condominiums when he felt something bite down on his left hand. Whitworth was tossed underwater by a breaking wave and was bitten while he was underwater. When he pulled his arm free and stood up, he said he saw a shark about 3 feet long swimming away. He left the water with his mother and called 911.
He went to Flagler Hospital, where hospital staff said he would most likely need several dozen stitches. According to the report, a deputy saw 10 to 12 half-inch lacerations around Whitworth’s wrist. Ouch.
10-year-old Seth Shorten, FL, was bitten by a shark while playing in the Atlantic south of Crescent Beach about 9:30 a.m. and spent the night in Flagler Hospital for treatment of the wounds – one of which had a piece of a shark’s tooth in it.
The 4-foot-10 Seth was about waist deep when he was bitten on his right heel. Shorten said the bite was on the back of his ankle. The shark left six bite marks on the bottom of Seth’s foot and three or four on the top.
This is the second bite this year in St. Johns County.
A shark sighting sent Cocoa Beach swimmers running for shore yesterday. The shark was spotted Thursday afternoon by Brevard County Ocean Rescue staff. Lifeguards had to order about 300 swimmers to get out of the water for at least 30 minutes.
Assistant Chief Eisen Witcher says the 30-minute wait policy is to gauge if the sharks are still around. If they are, the clocks starts over.
A woman was attacked by a shark in chest-deep water at a Mickler’s Landing near Jacksonville, Florida. The woman saw the 3- to 4-foot-long shark coming directly at her. When she tried to block it with her arm, the shark dug in.
“She screamed, ‘I just got attacked by a shark. Everybody get out of the water,’” witness Jen Moe said. “She came running at me, screaming. I looked at her arm and it was just shredded.”
Then about 50-75 people who were in the water at the time of the attack ran for the sand.
Rescuers said what made the shark attack unusual was that the water was crystal clear and, according to experts, shark attacks are usually the result of mistaken identity, but in this case it appears the shark was headed right for the woman.
This is the third attack in this area in the past two months. The previous two were at Jacksonville Beach, one on June 10 and another on July 23.
Clayton Shulz, a baseball player at the University of North Florida, is recovering after being bitten by a shark in Jacksonville.
“The shark grabbed me and shook his head a little bit, and I think he kind of realized that he was biting the wrong thing, so he let go,” said Clayton.
The 20-year-old needed 400 stitches to repair the injury to his foot.
A 14-YEAR-old girl shows needed 51 stitches after a 4ft-long barracuda leapt out of the ocean and clamped on to her arm.
According to the report in The Sun, Koral Wira was sitting on her family’s yacht near Venice, Florida when the fish “flew across the boat like a bullet” and fastened its teeth onto her arm.
Koral’s dad Rob had been fishing and the barracuda was attracted by the bait. He said: “The fish took my shark bait but then jumped out of the water, right at my daughter. It’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
After letting go of Koral’s arm, the fish fell on its side to the floor, where Rob killed it by stabbing it with a fillet knife.
18-year-old Timothy Delano was hospitalized in southwest Florida after an alligator bit off his left hand.
Delano was swimming with three friends in a Collier County canal around 9:30 p.m. Sunday when the alligator attacked. Delano was on a rock in the middle of the canal, but fell into the water. While he tried to get back on the rock, the 10-foot, 2-inch alligator grabbed his hand.
Delano and his friends managed to swim to shore and get into a car, where he called 911. A helicopter transported Delano to Lee Memorial Hospital.
Doctors were unable to reattach Delano’s hand, which was retrieved from the alligator’s stomach. However, Delano is in stable condition.
