While swimming close to Fort Pierce on May 11, a 13-year-old Florida girl suffered a bull shark bite. Ella Reed’s quick thinking saved her life, thankfully. After being bitten in the stomach, she used her arm to keep the shark from injuring her more and whacked it in the face with her other arm, all while advising her buddy to swim to safety. Fortunately, the teenager is okay, although the shark attack required 19 stitches.
Though Reed allegedly confessed to having problems sleeping following the mishap, she is determined to return to the beach.
Reed, an eighth-grader from Fort Pierce, Florida, lives across the street from the beach but has never seen a shark before. Reed battled the shark courageously, but she was nonetheless injured in her knee, arm, torso, and finger.
The kid claimed the shark bit her stomach, but she was able to deflect another bite with her arm. She recalls just breathing extremely heavily and then, when it hooked on to her stomach, not being able to breathe at all, as she was like, ‘What the heck is happening?’, Reed said.
It bit her first in the stomach. And immediately before it bit her in the stomach, she put her arm into the area where it was biting her, so it didn’t get her stomach but rather her arm. Then she struck it with her other hand, like hitting its nose or face, Reed said.
Reed was able to climb out of the water and video call her brother for assistance. Devin Reed, her mom, allegedly said that she first did not believe her daughter was serious.
assumed she was joking at first, but then she says, ‘I’m not joking!’ And she grabbed the camera and panned it over her body, and she just sort of froze and scared herself out. Her first thought was to tell her pal to run, not to ask for help, Devin Reed said. She was saving her pal.
After coming up from the beach on a golf cart, the mother met the 13-year-old and transported her to the fire department. According to the news site, she then proceeded to the emergency department.
Though shark attacks are uncommon, Florida has the most documented shark bites.
Reed had 19 stitches as a result of the shark bite — five in her body and 14 on her leg — but she plans to return to the beach and one day become a marine researcher.
Ella is proud of her scars, according to her mother. ”She says, ‘If I went through it, I’m going to show it to people. No, she will not let me help her with those scars in any way,” Devin Reed stated.
