‘Shark Attack: The Paige Winter Story’: The horrific event that changed a 17-year-old's life
It's been over a year but that horrific incident still has fresh wounds. On Sunday, June 2, 2019, Paige Winter sustained "deep lacerations to her leg, pelvis and hand areas" in the attack around noon at Fort Macon State Park, as per a Daily Mail report. As the story of the New Bern teenager’s near-fatal encounter unrolls on the ABC 2020 Robin Roberts Event Special on Thursday night, here's a closer look at the incident. What really happened on that unfateful day and how did she survive against all odds?
Paige Winter was 17 when she went swimming in shallow water with her family at Fort Macon Beach off the coast of North Carolina. She suddenly felt herself being yanked underwater by a shark. While her horrified younger brother and a friend looked on, Winter’s quick-thinking father, a paramedic, and firefighter ran to her aid and punched the shark repeatedly until it let go.
Paige's father Charlie Winter fearlessly jumped to the rescue and saved her life. However, she lost her left leg and two fingers in the attack. At 12.19 pm that day, rescuers responded to the area by the bathhouse and rushed Paige to a waiting East Care Helicopter at Carteret Health Care. Vidant Medical Center in Greenville released a statement saying "her family expresses their appreciation for the first responders, the individuals on the beach who helped and her heroic father who saved her life."
Charlie, who works for the City of Havelock Fire-Rescue Department, was listed as being in "good condition and receiving excellent care" at the hospital. Marcy Winter, her mother, and a former marine shared an update later that day saying, "Paige is out of surgery and awake, she's still pretty groggy but cracking jokes. She wants everyone to know that sharks are still good people." "Despite this unfortunate circumstance, Paige is an unwavering advocate for the marine life and the animals who live in the water," the statement continued. "She wishes for people to continue to respect sharks in their environment and their safety."
Her grandmother Janet Winter penned down an emotional account on Facebook saying the 17-year-old is alive and will recover. "Thank God our son was with her, he said he punched the shark in the face five times before it let go," Winter's grandma said, adding she "may need a hand transplant in the future and several on the other."
After the incident, Paige looked back at her summer vacation plans prior to the attack and told ABC News: "Summer 2019 was looking very promising. You know, school was about to end," she said. "It was lookin' pretty good. I was excited. I was happy. Then, you know, sometimes things happen." Charlie, her father, said, "Everybody needed to get out. Everybody needed to just play. We're going to go have a good day at the beach. And that's what we did."
According to Good Morning America, talking about the moment she felt the shark teeth, she said, "It happened really fast, but a lot of thoughts were going through my head," adding that she thought, "'Am I going to drown or am I going to bleed out? I really don't want to die.' So I started praying."
Meanwhile, her father recalled the day and said, "I ran, I just started running. It didn't take me long to get there, but I just got there. I just ran, I ran where the pink was moving and I dove under and I grabbed Paige with my left arm and I brought her up. When I brought her up, there was resistance." He then added, "There was a shark, this shark, this huge shark and it thrashed. And I knew I had Paige and it was pulling me, and I had to anchor my feet down in the sand to stop me from moving out. And I just started to hit it. I hit it, man. I hit it so hard. So many times, just started to hit it."
In the new special, she shares snippets about the dramatic rescue and how she has been coping up with life after the life-changing incident took place. Catch the special episode of 'Shark Attack: The Paige Winter Story With Robin Roberts' on September 10 at 10 pm ET/PT on ABC.
