A 9-year-old who was attacked by a shark is speaking out about her harrowing ordeal. The aquatic animal bit her on the left hand, leaving her with traumatic injuries that needed emergency surgery.
Speaking with Fox Orlando on June 19, 9-year-old Leah Lendel says that she has a long journey of recovery ahead of her. The shark attack took her by surprise. She didn't realize at first that she had even been bitten.
"I was just snorkeling, and then I went up to breathe," Leah said at the press conference Thursday, June 19, per Fox Orlando. "And then something hard bit me, and then it tried to tug me away."
She continued, "Then I picked up my hand, and it's all in blood."
However, her mom says that she instantly knew what was wrong when she saw the water full of blood. She said the animal had bit her daughter's hand and that it was "almost completely gone."
"There was so much blood in the water right next to me," Leah's mom, Nadia Lendel, recalled. "In an instant, I knew it's a shark attack."
Shark Attack On 9-Year-Old
Nearby construction workers helped the 9-year-old girl after the attack. Bystander Alfonso Tello said he saw an 8-foot shark in the water.
"When we saw the little girl coming out of the water with no hand, it was like something out of a ... it gets me like ... everybody was in shock," Tello said.
Following the shark attack, she was rushed to the hospital and underwent a 6 hour surgery to put her hand back together.
"They had to get arteries from her leg to the hand," Nadia added at the time.. "Got the blood flow back to her hand. Install pins in bones. Still has open tissues," she said. "They will be monitoring her here for a week. But thank God she can move her fingers."
Dr. Alfred Hess, an orthopedic surgeon, said Leah was fortunate.
"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."
