BOCA GRANDE, Fla. (WFLA) – Body camera video shows the tense moments of the nine-year-old being attacked by a Boca Grande shark.
The young girl, Leah Rendell, was snorkeling just a few feet from her mother. She said she suddenly jumped out of the water.
“I was still chasing her”: A 9-year-old girl attacked by a shark while swimming on Florida beach
“I could see her hand hanging, and there’s blood everywhere,” Nadia Rendell said in the sheriff’s assistant moment after the attack.
Leah was taken to a hospital in Tampa where she underwent a six-hour operation to fix her hands and fingers.
The 9-year-old girl’s hands were torn apart by a shark attack from Florida beach, family say
Nadia shared an update on her daughter’s condition on Friday.
“[This] Morninglear could move every finger,” she wrote on Instagram. “This is truly a miracle.”
Construction workers at nearby workplaces rushed to the ground when they heard the fuss, allowing first responders to wrap their towels in Lear’s injuries as they competed on the scene.
One of the men, Reinel Lugo, couldn’t tell what kind of shark it was, but said it was large and about 8 feet long.