A woman vacationing on a South Carolina beach dismissed concerns from her grandchildren about sharks moments before one bit her.
Fifty-five-year-old Karren Sites, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, travelled in mid-August to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, hoping to enjoy the last weeks of summer break with her grandchildren and her husband. But just a day after they had arrived in the resort city, Ms Sites became one of the rare victims of shark attacks.
“It was a perfect day on the beach. We were swimming and my grandkids kept saying, “What if there [are] sharks?” Ms Sites told The Independent on Friday. “And I said, “Oh, don’t be afraid. It is so rare that anybody ever gets bit by a shark.”
Just moments later, Ms Sites’ eight-year-old grandson, Brian, witnessed how a shark jumped out of the water and bit her arm, she said. In shock, Ms Sites instinctively pushed the shark away with her free arm but remained in disbelief at what had just happened.
“I felt a sharp kind of intense pain on my right arm. And my first thought was, ”It’s anything but a shark,” she said. “I was thinking, “Did I get bit by a jellyfish,” and I looked down and there was a shark attached to my arm.”
Ms Sites said the shark eventually subsided and let go of her flesh. She made it to the shore and the beach suddenly became a scene out of a JAW movie, with other tourists warning people to get out of the water, she said.
“I looked at my arm and saw the damage … and I think I was in shock, I didn’t know what to do. I just walked out of the water,” she said.
“I kept saying, “I don’t want to look at my arm, I don’t want to look at my arm,” because I didn’t want to see it.”
Thankfully, an ER room who happened to be vacationing at the beach rushed to help Ms Sites and washed her arm with bottled water before she was transported to a hospital. Ms Sites suffered damage to her ring finger but was discharged just a day later.
“I still have a long recovery ahead of me …It looks like [my ring finger] is on its way to being better,” she told The Independent.
“They can’t guarantee that my arm will be [function] 100per cent [as it did before], because there is some tendon and nerve damage, but all things considered, it could have been much worse, and some people are much worse injured so I’ll take this.”
Ms Sites said her grandson was left traumatized by the incident as he saw it unfold.
She said: “My grandson saw all the whole thing happen, which is a little bit traumatizing for him.”
“I was terrified when it happened but I didn’t think “Oh my God, I’m going to die,” that never occurred to me, but my grandkids didn’t know that and they were afraid.”
And in an attempt to salvage the remaining days of vacation, Ms Sites and her family decided to stay in the city for the week and even visited the beach again — although her grandchildren were not precisely eager to jump back in the water, she said.
“I didn’t feel great or anything but I thought, “I could not feel great at home, or I could not feel great at the beach for a day or two,” she said.
“It was not the vacation we had planned for, but we made the best out of it.”
Ms Sites said she was grateful for the solidarity people at the beach had shown. She underwent surgery the same day of the incident and her arm was put in a cast that has since been replaced with a brace.
“I should have a free pass for the rest of my life,” Ms Sites said with humour.
“The beach has been my favourite place since I’ve been little and never ever, ever had a fear of anything like that happening or that it could ever happen.”
Her shark attack comes amid increasing reports of similar others in the country. There have been roughly 36 reported shark attacks this year in the US — and 65 in the world —, according to the website Tracking Sharks.
Twenty of those incidents have taken place in Florida, six in New York, five in South Carolina, one in California and one in Hawaii.
The recent increase in attacks on New York beaches might be the result of a combination of conservation efforts and climate change, CNN reported in July.
“The country is warmer than it’s ever been. And that’s going to drive more people to the water than ever before, which just simply increases your probability of somebody getting accidentally bit,” California State University Shark Lab director Christopher Lowe told CNN Saturday.
