9-Year-Old Survives Shark Attack in Florida

A 9-year-old girl has survived a terrifying shark encounter off Florida and remarkably retains the use of her right hand despite that it was "mostly torn off," per Gulf Coast News. Leah Lendel was snorkeling off Boca Grande, about 4 feet from her mother, on Wednesday when she surfaced and started screaming, per the outlet. Her mom then realized Leah's right hand was covered in blood up to the wrist. Leah was able to walk to shore, where family members and bystanders wrapped up her wound, and was later airlifted to a Tampa hospital.

She underwent a six-hour surgery, which involved moving arteries from her leg into her hand and installing pins in bones. She "still has open tissues," her mom says in a statement. "But thank God she can move her fingers." A relative who created a GoFundMe to help with Leah's medical expenses notes the 9-year-old will be in the hospital for a while and will need "a lot of physical therapy to hopefully get her hand functioning again," per NBC News. Boca Grande Fire Chief CW Blosser III confirmed Leah's injuries were consistent with a shark bite. Though no sharks were observed when responders arrived, one bystander reported seeing "a big shark, like 8 feet," per WBBH. Blosser noted there'd been three prior shark bites in the area, "spread out over quite a bit of time," per Gulf Coast News. (More shark attack stories.)