A child was almost left one-handed after a vicious shark attack in Florida. In a statement to ABC News, Leah Lendel’s family opened up about the terrifying incident.
The Lendel family told the outlet that Leah was swimming near the shore in Boca Grande, Florida, on June 11. At the time, the family said, Leah’s mom, Nadia Lendel, and two younger siblings were just feet away from her.
When Leah decided to swim underwater to snorkel, things took a horrific turn. The family said that Leah “screamed” as she came up out of the water.
When Nadia looked over at her daughter, the family said she saw her daughter’s right hand covered “up to the wrist, all in blood and mostly torn off.”
Nadia proceeded to scream for help, at the same time, ushering her three kids to shore, the family said. Meanwhile, Leah’s dad, who’d been snorkeling “some distance away,” swam “as fast as possible to shore,” the Lendels said.
What Happened After the Shark Attack
Once out of the water, the family said construction workers on their lunch break rushed to help them by making a tourniquet out of a towel and by calling paramedics.
Once emergency personnel arrived, Leah was airlifted to a nearby hospital, the Boca Grande Fire Department told the outlet.
She proceeded to have a “long surgery,” her family told the outlet.
“They had to get arteries from her leg to the hand. Got the blood flow back to her hand. Install pins in bones. Still has open tissues,” Nadia told a local station. “They will be monitoring her here for a week. But thank God she can move her fingers.”
In an update posted to her Instagram Story on June 13, Nadia wrote that it’s a “miracle” that Leah is able to move all of her fingers after the attack.
One of the construction workers who helped Leah, a man named Alfonso Tello, told the station that the shark that attacked Leah was about 8 feet long. However, the outlet reported no shark was seen in the water by the time first responders arrived.
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