“Just leave the sharks alone” seems like pretty basic advice. But here’s a video of a woman on vacation in Australia showing that not everyone got the memo.
In the video, a 34-year-old woman on holiday is feeding tawny nurse sharks some fish from a boat when it bites her finger. She immediately falls into the water. The incident occurred in Dugong Bay, off the northwestern coast.
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“It happened so quickly. All I could really focus on was the fact that my finger is gone. He’d clamped on it and it felt like it was shredding off the bone,” Melissa Brunning, of Perth, told 7 News.
“I think the shark was in shock as much as I was… The only way I can describe it is this immense pressure, and it felt like it was shredding it off the bone,” Brunning said. “I came up and I was like, ‘I’ve lost my finger, my finger’s gone.’”
The others on the boat were able to pull Brunning back on board, and the shark swam off.
The type of sharks Brunning was feeding, tawny nurse sharks, are known for normally having a docile demeanor but have sharp teeth and strong jaws. The shark that bit her was approximately two metres long.
Though Brunning was concerned she had lost one of her fingers, it was actually still in tact. However, she did end up with an infection, a fracture, and a torn ligament in her finger, 7 News reports. She needed an operation when she returned home.
“It’s not the shark’s fault at all, but it could have been a lot worse,” Brunning told PerthNow.
“Just be mindful of your surroundings, and don’t feed sharks,” she said.
