Teen Bit By Shark Talks About Harrowing Experience: Alysa Whetro, 13, Shares Experience Of Shark Attack [Video]
A Florida teen bit by a shark last weekend is talking about her harrowing experience. WFTV Channel 9 reports that Alysa Whetro was bitten Sunday off the coast of Cocoa Beach in Florida while she was celebrating her thirteenth birthday. Her goal to run in the Junior Olympics is on hold until she heals from the shark attack.
Tim Barber of WFTV posted the above image of Whetro on his Twitter page and asked his followers to share Alysa’s story. With shark attack season in full swing, this attack serves as cautionary information for beachgoers in the rare instance they encounter a shark in the water.
“When it bit me, I felt like a pain, like a sharp pain and then I pulled my foot up,” Alysa told WFTV.
The young member of the Florida Gliders track team noticed a pool of blood beside her after the shark attack. Alysa didn’t really know what happened until she pulled her foot up out of the water and saw it was covered in blood.
Alysa’s father — Dewann Whetro — was scared when he noticed what happened to his daughter.
“The worst things go through your mind. The hope that it’s not your kid, their leg is missing, their foot is missing, their arm is missing, they’re dead, you know?”
Alysa’s father noticed a crowd gathering around his daughter after the teen was bit by the shark. He said it was as if it was a scene out of a horror movie. He describes the shark attack as a “complete fright.”
The good news is that Alysa Whetro is okay and will have a rare type of surgery that involves putting a graft from an umbilical cord on her Achilles tendon to help her recover. She won’t be able to run in the Junior Olympics this summer, though. She reportedly has a great sense of humor about the whole incident. In fact, she had a temporary shark tattoo inked above her injury.
The teen who got bit by a shark said no one really believed it at first.
“Everybody was asking what happened and then some people didn’t believe it so I showed them the picture of it and they were like, ‘Oh, you actually did get bit by a shark.'”
[Image via Tim Barber/Twitter]
