Shark bites 17-year-old Kentucky girl on leg off Florida coast
DESTIN, Fla. -- A teenager from Kentucky was bitten by shark in the waters off Florida’s Panhandle, according to authorities.
A five-foot long shark bit the 17-year-old girl on the leg Sunday afternoon, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. She was swimming in the Gulf near a sandbar.
Deputies said the teen needed stitches but that the injury was “fairly minor,” according to the sheriff’s office.
The girl, from Louisville, Kentucky, was visiting Destin with her high school softball team, authorities said, the Northwest Florida Daily News reports.
A tourist told the newspaper he saw blood running from the teen’s thigh as two friends helped her out of the water. While the area of the bite didn’t appear very large, “she was bleeding pretty good,” said Francis Thelen, who was visiting Destin.
Sgt. Jason Fulghum of the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said it wasn’t clear what kind of shark bit her.
The bite was the fourth documented attack off Okaloosa County beaches since 1882, says the Florida Museum of Natural History, which documents shark attacks worldwide. None of them were fatal.
