27-05-2025
I thought I was going to die, says British woman attacked by shark
A British woman has flown home for emergency surgery after she was bitten by a shark while on holiday in Jamaica.
Rachel Smith, 26, was in hip-height water off Rose Hall beach, in Montego Bay, when a shark bit her left hand. She was terrified to see her ring finger was hanging off, with blood spurting from the wound.
Her sister, Lisa, 28, saw a metre-long shark swimming away and managed to bring Smith to safety while warning others to keep away. Both sisters were knocked over by the impact of the animal, which was in an area that had been designated as safe to swim in. Doctors said the bite marks were likely those of a reef shark.
Smith, a pharmacologist, was taken to hospital in an ambulance and doctors said she needed plastic surgery but with no surgeon available for two weeks, she and her sister flew back to their parents' home in Cork, Ireland, to seek treatment.
Doctors said the tendons and nerves in Smith's ring and little fingers were damaged, and the ligaments in her ring finger had been separated. After emergency surgery, she hopes to regain full movement in 18 months.
Smith and her sister, a procurement specialist, both from Newham, London, said they had suffered nightmares since the attack on May 8.
Smith said: 'There was so much blood coming out I honestly thought I was going to die. I was in complete shock. My whole hand went numb so I thought my whole hand had been taken off.
'I feel grateful to be alive and so grateful to have my hand. I have a long road of recovery ahead but I have a positive attitude and I believe I will get through it.'
Her sister added: 'We were so terrified. I honestly thought her fingers were gone — there was blood everywhere.
'We were just crying and thinking she was going to die.'
The sisters had to pay for ambulance and taxi travel to hospitals in Jamaica and to get a 'fit to fly' certificate to come home.
