‘I saw it jump’: Woman recalls horrifying ordeal as Myrtle Beach records TWO shark attacks in a day
MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA: In a horrifying shark attack, two people were bitten on the same day August 15. The first bite took place on 75th Avenue North and the second shark bite took place north of 82nd Avenue. Only one of the victims has been identified, Karren Sites, who went through surgery and received hundreds of stitches, as per the NY Post.
The Myrtle Beach Police Department (MBPD) told WPDE, as per WSOC-TV, that the two people were bitten by sharks within blocks of each other. Initially, there was no information provided by the police about the victims such as their age or gender, however, according to The Sun News, police mentioned that one of the victims was bitten on the forearm.
MBPD Master Corporal Thomas Vest, who shared the details of locations where the attacks took place, said that the local beach patrol works with the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida to identify marine animal bites, specifically sharks. The details of the shark(s) are still unknown.
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Recollecting the attack, Sites, who was there on a family vacation and was swimming in shallow water with her 8-year-old grandson, said, as per NY Post, "I just felt something, I guess, bite me and there was a shark on my arm. I was only in waist-deep water. I kept pushing at it to get it off my arm and it did." Her grandson Brian, who was just 10 feet away as he saw the shark attacking her, told, “I couldn’t even see the shark coming up, but all I saw was the shark jumped up and it didn’t even bite all the way, like I saw the movement of the tail go to the side and then she screamed a little bit and as soon as she touched it, it fell into the water."
As per the outlet, Sites said she’ll be back on the beach as soon as the doctors give her a green signal that she can go. However, the grandson said he won’t go anytime soon. He said, “I’ll sit on the sand but I ain’t going in the water."
As per Newsweek, the two attacks on Myrtle Beach have taken South Carolina's total tally to four this year. That includes one on Kiawah Island and one in Myrtle Beach on June 21, as per The Sun News.