FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A 13-year-old girl fought off a shark after being attacked at a South Florida beach on Thursday.
Ella Reed was in the waters at North Jetty Beach in Fort Pierce when the shark attacked, biting her three times, TCPalm.com reported. The North Hutchinson Island resident was bitten on her torso, leg and finger while standing in waist-high water, and believes a 4-foot bull shark was the culprit.
“The shark just kept on getting me, so I started trying to hit it with both my arms; both my arm and my hand got kind of bit,” Reed told the news outlet. “I tried to get away and then it just came back and bit my leg.”
Ella Reed, 13, fought off the shark, which she says bit her on the torso, leg and finger. She's eager to get back in the water after her wounds heal. https://t.co/r3DkF2tcqx
— TCPalm (@TCPalm) May 13, 2023
The shark swam away initially but counterattacked. When she reached the shore, Ella Reed called her brother on FaceTime and told her about the incident. Her mother, listening to the call, thought it was a joke until her daughter panned the camera down to show her wounds, TCPalm.com reported.
“First, initially I seriously thought it was a prank,” Devin Reed, the girl’s mother, told WPTV.
Ella Reed was taken to the St. Lucie County Fire District Station a short distance from her home and then to an area hospital, according to the television station.
The teen told WPLG-TV that she received 19 stitches.
“I was kinda in shock about everything that happened, so I wasn’t really in pain because the adrenaline was through the roof,” she told the television station.
According to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File, Florida is considered the shark bite capital of the world. New Smyrna Beach, in Volusia County, has recorded the most shark bites since 1882 with 343, according to the file. St. Lucie County, where Ella Reed lives, has had 37 since it became a county in 1905.
The shark encounter did not faze Reed. She went to Fort Pierce Inlet State Park on Friday, WPTV reported.
“There are so many sharks out there, but we never actually thought this was going to happen,” Ella Reed told TCPalm.com.
