Mum terrified as girl, 9, walks out of sea with no hand and covered in blood
A nine-year-old girl has recalled the moment she realised her hand had been bitten off in a terrifying shark attack.
Leah Lendel shared her story during a press conference on Thursday, June 19, just over a week after she was bitten by a shark while snorkelling in Florida on June 11.
"I was just snorkelling, and then I went up to breathe," Leah explained. "Then something hard bit me and tried to tug me away. I looked at my hand, and it was covered in blood. I started screaming for my mom."
Her mother, Nadia, who was nearby, immediately realized the severity of the situation. "I looked over and saw her hand was almost completely gone," she said. "The water around her was filled with blood. In that moment, I knew it was a shark attack."
READ MORE: World's biggest Great White Shark tracker LIVE: 14ft monster mapped in ocean after tourist warning
Emergency crews responded to a report of a possible shark bite around noon near the 2200 block of Shore Lane on Boca Grande Island, Fire Chief C.W. Blosser said in a video statement.
Leah's father, Jay Lendel, said first responders arrived within three minutes of the call. Nearby construction workers also jumped in to help the family. One of them, Alfonso Tello, told Gulf Coast News that he saw what appeared to be an 8-foot shark in the water when he tried to assist.
"When we saw the little girl coming out of the water without a hand, it was like something out of a horror movie," Tello said. "Everyone was in shock."
Leah was airlifted to a hospital and underwent a six-hour emergency surgery to repair her hand.
The following day, on June 12, Nadia confirmed to Gulf Coast News that doctors had managed to reconstruct Leah's hand.
"They took arteries from her leg to restore blood flow," Nadia explained. "They also inserted pins to stabilise the bones. Some of the tissue is still open, but thank God, she can move her fingers."
Chief Blosser added that this was the first reported shark bite on Boca Grande Island in nearly two decades.
Leah continues to recover in hospital with the help of her family, a therapy dog named Belle and a team of medical professionals who'll help her regain full use of her hand.
Asked how she's been able to handle everything so well, Leah replied shyly: "I don't know."
Dr. Alfred Hess, an orthopedic surgeon, said Leah's case had "a great outcome."
"A shark injury is both a blessing and a curse in this case," he said. "The teeth are so sharp that the cut through the wrist is clean and not jagged, so it doesn't ruin all the tissue and we have clean tissue to work with."
He said he's seen all kinds of animal-inflicted wounds in his 35 years of practice, including alligators, lions and sharks. Sharks' mouths, he said, "are like a bunch of razor blades. They go through tissue." Treating the wounds, he added, "is all about if you have something left to put back on."
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