High college cheerleader Addison Bethea, then 17, misplaced a part of her leg after the assault by the two.7m shark in Florida on June 30 final yr.
She was in water simply 1.5m deep when she felt one thing “grabbing her”.
Bethea, now 18, instructed her story in a brand new documentary, Why Sharks Attack, broadcast within the UK by the BBC.
She thought the factor tugging on her leg was her half-brother Rhett, she instructed the filmmakers.
The pair had been on the lookout for scallops.
“I thought it was Rhett as it pulled me under because I didn’t feel any pain or anything,” she instructed the BBC.
“But then it started kind of shaking me and that’s when I knew it was something else.
“It began biting into my proper thigh and I used to be gouging its eye to get it off me after which it began swimming away with me nonetheless in its mouth.”
Rhett, 23, saw the shark and Bethea managed to get her into a boat and to safety after getting it off her by punching it.
“I heard Addison yell and he or she surfaced and I instantly may see this tail, simply slashing backwards and forwards,” he said.
“I grabbed her and began hitting it to get it off.”
Footage from the shore shows Bethea yelling “assist me”.
She was airlifted to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital for emergency surgery and later had to have her right leg amputated above the knee.
She had to learn to walk again after the attack.
Bethea, who now has a prosthetic leg, managed to graduate from high school and recently revealed on Instagram she was pregnant.
Last year, sharks attacked 16 people in encounters off Florida.
Sharks spotted metres from the shore at beach in Queensland
Source: www.9news.com.au
