A 13-year-old boy was bitten by a shark off the Georgia coast after he and his friends caught the animal while fishing and attempted to remove the hook, according to local reports.
The teen was aboard a boat with two other youths and his father near Ossabaw Island, roughly 20 miles south of Savannah, on Wednesday when the nearly 6-foot shark bit him in the thigh, a witness told WTOC.
Boater Terry Tatum said she was reading on the back of her boat when she noticed another vessel approaching and immediately sensed something was wrong. The boat pulled up in front of hers, she said, and the boy’s father was urgently asking for help.
“I went to the boat and saw three teenagers on the boat and a traumatic scene,” Tatum told the station.
She said the group explained they had been fishing when they caught a large shark, estimated at about 5 or 6 feet long. As they tried to unhook it, the shark clamped down on the boy’s right thigh. Tatum said she grabbed a first aid kit and helped render aid.
Dispatch audio from a 3:51 p.m. emergency call, obtained by WJCL, indicated the bite was to the boy’s upper thigh.
The teen was taken to a local hospital, WSAV reported. His condition has not been publicly released.
