A Florida teenager had her right leg amputated just above the knee Tuesday after she was attacked by a shark last week.
Addison Bethea, 17, was bit by the predator while hunting for scallops off Keaton Beach, she said, according to a report.
“I didn’t really know exactly what to do, but I knew that with sharks, you’re supposed to punch them in the nose to get them off of you, and I couldn’t get around to punch him in the nose,” Bethea said.
“So I just started socking it in the face and then poked its eyes, and I tried to latch it off me with my fingers — and then it bit my hand.”
The teenager screamed until her brother, Rhett Willingham, a firefighter and EMT, came to her aid.
“I heard her make a noise, almost like something scared her,” he said. “I sat up and looked and didn’t see her. Then, she came up from the water, and I saw the shark and the blood and all that. Then, I swam over there and got [the shark] off.”
Willingham pulled the teenager into a nearby boat and applied a tourniquet to stymie the blood loss, he said.
She was rushed to a hospital, and doctors announced she would have to lose a significant portion of her right leg, according to a report.
“This is the best-case scenario for Addison and the best option to get her back to the most normal life possible,” Michelle Murphy, Addison’s mother, said.
Bethea, a cheerleader and tennis player, is staying positive, her mother said, and a fundraiser has been set up to help pay medical expenses.
