Shark Bite Jokes Turn Real For Teen
A 15-year-old who was bitten in the leg by an eight-foot gray shark in knee-deep waters off Hawaii says she feels lucky to be alive.
Nicolette "Nikky" Raleigh, of Maui, adds that she and some friends had been joking about the possibility of a shark attack just before she went into the water.
Maui and boyfriend Shane Wilds were standing together when the shark approached,
The shark knocked Wilds off his feet, then bit Raleigh's right
Calf, leaving a ten-inch-long wound, Kubota says.
"I just started screaming. I was like, 'Get him off me.' Then I kicked him with my foot," Raleigh told reporters in a hospital later.
"Everything got pretty messed up. My muscles are all torn and everything, but I got really lucky, because the only thing that
happened was I'm missing part of my nerve."
Raleigh, Wilds and some friends had come to the beach to celebrate Wilds' 17th birthday, Kubota says. He wanted to try out the new boardshorts Raleigh had given him.
"We kind of joked about it 15 minutes before, like, 'Don't get bitten by a shark!' And we're like, 'Yeah, yeah.' "
"And then," Raleigh added with a smile, "lucky me!"
Raleigh, an avid surfer and skateboarder faces a second surgery Wednesday, and some eight months of recovery.
But she's counting her blessings, saying, "I just feel that I'm really lucky and I have a purpose in life, but I'll figure it out sooner or later, 'cause I really didn't think I was gonna survive this."
On Friday, a man who had gone snorkeling nearby was found dead, with shark bites on his body, Kubota says, but police say it's not clear how he died.
Authorities were keeping beachgoers away from the shoreline in the area of the attack, by closing the road leading to it. It was possible the beach would be re-opened Wednesday.
Crews searched for signs of the shark that attacked Raleigh on the water and from the air, signs such as "conditions or events that may be drawing sharks into the area, (such as) larges schools of fish, maybe some marine mammals, whales, or dolphins or seals that may be in the area that could possibly bring big predators in," said Russell Sparks of the state Division of Aquatic Resources.
"Shark attacks do occur, but are extremely rare. We have thousands and thousands of people in the water every day, but during any given year, there are 3 or 4 attacks, perhaps."