Girl details shark encounter in shallow beach waves
A 12-year-old Pennsylvania girl is recovering from an apparent shark bite while on a family vacation at the beach in Ocean City, Maryland.
Jordan Prushinnski spoke to "Good Morning America" about the incident that happened while boogie boarding in shallow water that left her with 42 stitches and over 20 lacerations.
"It started out like any other day, we were swimming in the ocean, hopping over the waves, boogie boarding," she said of the early part of that day with her sister and two cousins. "I thought I picked up a horseshoe crab and hit [it] against my shins -- I didn't know what was going on."
She ran out of the water with blood pouring down her leg to get help from her mother, Melissa Prushinnski, who was on shore.
"She came out and I took one look at her leg and saw the wounds and the bleeding," the mom said. "Immediately I went for the lifeguard because I knew we were going to need some help taking care of this."
The family rushed to a nearby hospital where a doctor confirmed it was a shark bite.
"We could clearly see the pattern of the bites," Melissa Prushinski said, adding that the doctor told them "no other animal has this type of this type of wound pattern."
The mother said they sent photos to an expert at the Shark Research Institute in New Jersey and was told that it might have been a blacktip shark.
Dr. Stephen Kajiura, a professor and resident shark expert at Florida Atlantic University, told "GMA" that blacktips can be found "right up against the beach, often chasing little bait fish or staying out of the way."
Shark sightings, let alone incidents, have been rare in Ocean City. But experts believe they're seeing an increase in sharks in areas where the animals are not normally seen due to warmer waters.
"They're heading farther and farther north," Dr. Kajiura said. "There's going to be a bigger and bigger problem going forward as shark migrations are shifting."
Jordan Prushinnski has been in high spirits despite the incident and while it may keep her out of the ocean for now, she said it won't let it stop her forever.
"Might be a year or two, but this is rare to happen," she said. "It's even rarer for it to happen a second time."
