20-Year-Old College Student Gets Nearly 100 Stitches After Shark Attack On Juno Beach
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A college student's day at a Florida beach ended with him in the hospital afraid that he may lose his arm.
"I felt my arm basically get hit and like kicked almost. I can like feel now, looking back on it, l felt like the nose of the shark basically hit my body," said Bryce Albert.
The 20-year-old, who is from Naples, was left with a major wound to his left arm following the shark bite.
Albert said he and several friends went to Juno Beach last Thursday.
The Auburn University sophomore said about 3:30 in the afternoon he and three friends were in the water about 25 yards from shore.
He said the water was four-and-a-half to five-feet deep, and it was very choppy when something hit his left arm.
"I pulled my arm up and like, I quickly could see all the blood and like my muscles and bubbling over my skin," Albert said.
He said he never saw the shark that bit him.
"Yeah, I didn't panic. I actually was very calm the situation for some reason. I'm not really sure why I was, but I basically didn't yell," he said.
Albert said he quickly got out of the water and went to a lifeguard station near the Juno Beach Pier. Lifeguards wrapped his arm to control the bleeding. A friend then drove him to the hospital.
"I was in a lot of pain, but luckily I was able to like, stay calm enough to make it to the hospital. I knew if I wanted to at least like try and preserve my arm, which I did, like I'd have to say calm," Albert said.
He said doctors feel that based on the size of the wound to his left arm, the shark that bit him was probably a blacktip shark about six-feet long.
Albert has about a hundred stitches in his arm, but he's relieved and grateful that he did not lose his arm.
"I got pretty good feeling like I'm moving my hands and stuff. Weak, but I do definitely have my feeling now."
Albert said he hopes that others will be inspired by his story and realize that life is precious.
He added this incident helps him keep the right things in perspective.
"People overreact about like, if they get an order wrong at like a fast food restaurant and getting mad at those people. I think, I hope I can inspire people to really look at what's important. No matter what way you look at this, like I've been trying the whole time last four or five days to look at like the glass half full, that like this could have been so much worse. And it very easily could have cost me my life," he said.
Albert said the doctors have told him he will have full use again of his left arm.