California swimmer says shark shook her "like a dog" in its jaws before letting go
Lyn Jutronich was resting in the water during her morning ocean swim when something rammed her hard out of the water.
Jutronich, 50, said she immediately knew it was a shark. She gave her first interviews over the weekend from her hospital bed where she is recovering after the shark bit her leg Friday off the Pacific coast of Del Mar, north of San Diego.
"It was terrifying," she told CBS affiliate KMFB-TV. "It was a split second, and I didn't have enough time to respond. So as soon as I got rammed, I went, 'oh, I just got bit by a shark,' and then I saw the jaws, and then after that, it let me go, it shook me like one time kind of like a dog does, and it let me go."
Before the shark let her go, Jutronich told KGTV: "I felt a huge, like a really hard hit right, I don't know how else to say this, like right between my legs and it pushed me, it hurt and it pushed me up and out of the water."
A friend swimming with her saw her being flung around in the water, then he saw the shark's fin. He helped her get back to shore where lifeguards and emergency crews treated her then rushed her to a hospital.
She is being treated for puncture and laceration wounds to her upper right thigh. She told KMFB that the largest wound is about 8 centimeters long, 2.5 centimeters wide and 3 centimeters deep.
The shark is believed to have been a juvenile white shark, but officials are waiting for scientists to confirm. Juvenile white sharks often swim in the waters off Del Mar's shoreline.
Jutronich told the station she is still processing what happened and isn't sure when she will get back in the water.
"First I'm going to focus on healing my wounds, and then I'm going to focus on healing the psychology of it," she said.
Last month, a man was bitten on the leg by a shark while surfing off Centerville Beach south of Eureka in Northern California. Surgeons stapled shut his open wounds, which spanned nearly 19 inches, or the length of the shark's mouth.
In June, a man was bitten by a great white shark off the Central California coast. The 62-year-old was released from Natividad Medical Center in Salinas three weeks after the shark bit him as he swam off Pacific Grove near Monterey, the hospital said.
Last Christmas Eve, a 42-year-old Sacramento man was killed in a shark attack in Morro Bay in Central California.
Shark attacks increased around the world in 2021 following three consecutive years of decline, officials said in January. The U.S. reported the most unprovoked shark bites in 2021, with 47 confirmed incidents — 64% of the worldwide total.