9-year-old bitten by shark while swimming in knee-deep water in Florida beach says she won't let the attack scare her
A 9-year-old girl was savaged by a shark at a Florida beach which has been called "the shark bite capital of the world." The child, Maggie Crum, and her family were at the New Smyrna Beach from Ohio on August 16 when the incident took place.
Maggie was playing in shallow water with her sister when she felt something brush against her leg. The shark then took a bite out of Maggie. The child spoke to Good Morning America and said, "I saw the sand swirl. I didn't know what it was. I thought it was a big fish. It felt like a grab at first and then it just ripped into the skin, and that's when it hurt and felt like a bite." She let out a scream but her family initially thought that she was just joking.
While speaking to the Today Show, Maggie's mother Aimee Breiding shared that when Maggie lifted her leg out of the water, she saw a lot of blood running down her leg. Aimee then yelled at everyone to "get out of the water." Being a firefighter and paramedic, Breiding was able to identify the wounds immediately. "With as big of cuts as was in the back of her leg, we knew right away it was a shark," Breiding shared. Maggie was rushed to hospital where she received 12 stitches.
The Crum family was not aware of the beach's reputation until after they had arrived in the beach town. "We didn't tell the girls in an effort to keep them going into the water. And we talked about it, and we said there's no sharks that shallow. There's nothing to worry about," Breiding added. Even though she got bitten, Maggie is very positive and will not let it scare her away from the water. As reported by Wesh 2, the shark was estimated to be about three to four feet long based on the injury.
Maggie is the tenth person to be bitten by a shark at the New Smyrna Beach and the fifth person to be bitten in Florida over the past month. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History's International shark attack records, Florida leads in the country's shark attacks and accounts for 24% of all the unprovoked attacks in the world.