By DIVE Staff
A 22-year-old Connecticut woman had her foot bitten off by a shark while snorkelling with a friend off Grace Bay Beach in the Turks and Caicos, according to reports.
The woman, a graduate of Yale University and a keen marathon runner, is reported to have been bitten by a Caribbean reef shark, although there has been no confirmed identification of the shark involved.
The captain of the boat from which the pair were snorkelling is reported to have dived into the water to rescue the snorkeller, while a member of staff at a nearby resort called for the emergency services.
The captain later retrieved the woman’s severed foot, but a 6-hour delay in transferring her to a hospital in Miami meant it could not be reattached during surgery.
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The Turks and Caicos islands are home to a number of shark species, including grey reef sharks, nurse sharks and lemon sharks, none of which is known to exhibit aggressive behaviours, although tiger sharks and bull sharks have also been seen among the islands from time to time.
There is no confirmed evidence that the shark was a Caribbean reef shark, merely that it was ‘presumed’ to be one.
The snorkel tour organiser, Big Blue Collective, said in a statement that shark-biting incidents around the Turks and Caicos Islands were ‘extremely rare’, adding that, ‘the calm, quick and measured response from one of our captains and office team meant that the victim was extracted from the ocean and dispatched in the ambulance in 15 minutes, saving them from a potentially life-threatening situation.’
A spokesperson for the Department of Environment & Coastal Resources for Turks and Caicos said: ‘Yesterday, at the Bone Yard dive site in Princess Alexandra National Park, a 22-year-old female visitor from Connecticut was severely injured while snorkelling.
‘Responding swiftly, officers from the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force ensured the injured visitor was quickly transported to the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre to receive emergency care.’
‘Although incidents such as these are highly unusual in the Turks and Caicos Islands,’ the spokesperson added, ‘swimmers, snorkellers and divers and boat operators are reminded to exercise caution on the water.’
According to the Visit Turks & Caicos Island’s tourist website, only four previous shark-biting incidents – none of them fatal – have been recorded since 2002.
