An 11-year-old boy snorkeling in the Florida Keys (USA) was bitten by a shark and needed urgent transport to a hospital where he had part of his leg amputated, the second case of a limb amputation by a shark Attack recently in this state.
Jameson Reeder Jr. was snorkeling with his family in the shallows of a reef in the Florida Keys in the far south of the state last Saturday when he was allegedly attacked by an eight-foot bull shark, his uncle, Joshua Reeder, said he was in the sea social media.
The shark gave the minor a bite just below the knee that caused severe bleeding; but “miraculously, despite the pain and her cries for help, she managed to stay afloat,” said her uncle.
The family pulled the young man out of the water, put him on the boat and put a tourniquet on his leg to stop the bleeding, local media reports reported Monday.
Coincidentally, a nurse was on a nearby boat helping the minor with first aid before he was flown to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, where doctors had no choice but to amputate part of his leg.
“Part of his leg had to be amputated just below the knee to save his life as it was rendered inoperable due to the damage caused by the shark,” Joshua Reeder wrote in his Facebook post.
The boy’s uncle said his nephew “is out of surgery and resting and has now learned the story of what happened to him”.
This is the second case of a juvenile leg amputation in just two months in Florida.
On June 30, Addison Bethea, 17, survived a shark attack in Keaton Beach in the northwest state but suffered a partial amputation of her leg, as did Jameson Reeder.
As of August 8 this year, 57 shark bites have been recorded worldwide, 6 of them fatal, according to the Tracking Sharks page.
In the United States, where 31 shark attacks have been recorded, the state of Florida is the state with the most recorded (18), followed by New York (6) and South Carolina (3), according to this organization.
The International File of Shark Attacks (ISAF), a University of Florida entity considered the world’s highest authority on the matter, released its annual report last January stating that nine people died in 2021 at the hands of “unprovoked” sharks have lost bites.
In 2021, Florida had 28 cases, accounting for 38% of all cases worldwide that year, when there were a total of 73 unprovoked cases, of which 9 were fatal and 39 were provoked.