A 19-year-old woman lost her right leg after a tiger shark attacked her at Boa Viagem beach in Recife, Brazil, on Monday, one day after a boy was attacked nearby.
Marcela Vitória de Lima Santos was pulled from the water by her cousin and other beachgoers after she began drifting and losing strength, according to local reports and hospital officials.
An off duty doctor applied a tourniquet on the shore to control heavy bleeding before she reached Hospital da Restauração. The hospital’s director, Petrus de Andrade Lima, said the swift first aid saved her life.
Surgeons amputated the leg above the knee. Lima said Santos arrived in severe hemorrhagic shock, received blood transfusions, may need more, and faces the infection risk common to animal bites.
The attack followed one a day earlier, when an 11-year-old boy lost his left leg at Piedade Beach in Jaboatão dos Guararapes, a short distance down the coast. He suffered severe injuries to the left side of his body and was treated at the same hospital.
Authorities confirmed a tiger shark attacked the woman but said they have not identified the species in the boy’s case. The state’s shark monitoring committee has recorded more than 80 incidents along the Pernambuco coast since 1992, and warning signs mark the most dangerous stretches.
