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08/17/2011 Lydia Strunk ( Puerto Rico )

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alb
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Re: 08/17/2011 Lydia Strunk ( Puerto Rico )

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Shark Survivor Lydia Strunk, 'I Saw My Leg Was Shredded'
lydia_struck.jpg
If Lydia Strunk needs any reminder of just how lucky she is to have survived a shark attack off the coast of Puerto Rico last week, all she has to do is look down at the cast on her right leg.

"You are truly one-in-a-million," reads an inscription on the cast, left by one of Strunk's friends.

"But I like to correct that -- that is one in 11 million," Strunk said today on "Good Morning America." "Because those are the odds."

The tale of survival against the odds for Strunk began late last Tuesday when the 27-year-old was kayaking with a group of 16 fellow U.S. tourists in the bioluminescent Mosquito Bay in Vieques, a tiny island just east of Puerto Rico.

Eager to see glow-in-the-dark fish, she jumped into the water with four other people, when something hit the leg of the person next to her.

"I jumped out and swam for about 10 minutes," Strunk said, speaking out publicly for the first time since her attack. "It was amazing."

"Then the person next to me asked, 'Did you feel that?'" she recalled. "Then, moments later, I felt a strong impact against my right leg and it pulled me into the water. Then I felt the shark swim across my left leg and then swim away."

"It was certainly a moment that changed from enjoyable to terrifying very quickly," she said.

Shrunk, a law student at the University of California in San Diego, had been bitten by a 6-foot tiger shark.

"I just felt strong pressure, but I just instinctually lifted up my leg and saw that my leg was shredded," she said.

"I got back in my kayak and I was more so in a state of frightened disbelief, saying 'Oh my god, oh my god,'" she recalled. "Then the adrenaline kicked in."

The harrowing journey for Strunk was just beginning as she faced the prospect of being transported from her group's remote location in the middle of the bay to an emergency facility where she could be treated.

"The tour guide tied my leg in a tourniquet," she said of those first few moments after the attack. "Then we had to kayak back into shore and then, from there, we embarked on a 10-15 minute bumpy ride on these dark island roads and then we reached the emergency room."

Strunk was airlifted to the Rio Piedras Medical Center on the mainland that night, where the 10-inch wound from below her knee to her ankle left by the shark was treated by doctors.

"Once I reached the emergency room I immediately felt relief," Strunk said. "Immediately I felt like it could have been a lot worse. Once the tour guide and everybody moved into action I felt like got impeccable emergency response, so I immediately felt fortunate."

Doctors repaired four tendons in Strunk's right leg that are used for flexing the foot. She is expected to make a full recovery but will likely have some nerve damage and limited movement in her right foot.

"It was like (the shark) tried to tear away," Dr. Pablo Rodriquez, part of the medical team who treated Strunk, told the Associated Press. "She has an imprint of all the shark's teeth."

Strunk's attack is just the latest in a string of shark attacks this summer.
Forty-six people reportedly have been attacked – nine of them fatally – by sharks since May.

In July, a 5-foot tiger shark nearly severed 6-yaer-old Lucy Mangum's right leg, attacking her in the shallow waters off the North Carolina coast as she rode a boogie board with her family.

And over the weekend an onlooker photographing surfers riding massive waves in Southern California spotted a dorsal fin just beneath the waves that surfers were riding. Experts say the fin was consistent with a 10 to 12 foot great white shark. The images are chilling.

"We have a lot of sightings of white sharks in the area, so it's sort of like the perfect storm of … danger," one surfer said.

Over the weekend in Australia, a great white shark fatally bit a surfer at the waist, apparently tearing him in two.

Another Australian man was mauled to death by tiger sharks last month, and a groom on honeymoon in the Seychelles also died after being bitten.

Shark attacks are rare in Puerto Rico. Only seven attacks have ever been reported, two of them fatal, with the last death occurring in 1924, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

The murky areas of the Mosquito Bay area where Strunk and her tourist group were kayaking, however, act as a nursery for several species of sharks, including tiger, nurse, reef and hammerheads.

People are prohibited from swimming in the bay's waters to protect the ecosystem, but it is not uncommon for kayak operators to let visitors, like Strunk, swim in the area.

Officials with the Department of Natural Resources are investigating what company, if any, organized Strunk's trip.

That company could face a penalty of up to $5,000 or lose its license, Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Ana Maria Ramos told the Associated Press.

Strunk says that despite the long road of healing ahead, she is confident she'll be back in the waters again soon.

"It'll take about a year to get full feeling back with the nerve being severed," she told "GMA." "But I feel tremendous, and have great strides daily."

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helmi
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Re: 08/17/2011 Lydia Strunk ( Puerto Rico )

Post by helmi »

Tourist attacked by shark in Puerto Rico
A woman on holiday in Puerto Rico was mauled by a shark in the bay of Vieques, requiring emergency surgery for wounds to the leg.

11:51PM BST 17 Aug 2011

Lydia Strunk, 27, was bitten by a shark in waters off the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, and airlifted to San Juan's Puerto Rico Medical Center, said emergency services official Teudy Martinez.

The bite was around 30 centimetres long from the ankle to knee near the back of her right leg and damaged four tendons of the right foot, but hospital officials said she would be able to walk.

Strunk, a former vice president of Amnesty International's US chapter, will need to remain admitted to hospital for four to five days, doctors said.

Marine biologist Edwin Hernandez said that the bioluminescent bay, believed to be the largest of its kind, is used by several species of shark for spawning.

"Between May and August there are different species that get into shallow areas, so when females are with the young, they can get a little territorial," he said.

Vieques has become a major tourist destination since the US Navy gave up its testing ground in 2003. The bay has unique microorganisms that create a glow when the water is disturbed.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
alb
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Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 7:41 pm

08/17/2011 Lydia Strunk ( Puerto Rico )

Post by alb »

Doctors: Shark likely bit US tourist in PRico


A U.S. tourist who was swimming at night in a bioluminescent bay is recovering from a suspected shark bite that occurred in a tiny island near Puerto Rico, a doctor said Wednesday.
The woman underwent surgery for severed tendons near her ankle and is expected to recover, said Dr. Edwin Miranda, a spokesman for the Rio Piedras Medical Center, where the victim was treated.

He said doctors believe the bite may have been caused by a shark, but they are awaiting analysis from a marine biologist Thursday.

Authorities didn't release the woman's name. The newspaper El Nuevo Dia described her as a 27-year-old woman from Idaho who was traveling alone, according to an acquaintance of hers in Puerto Rico.

Marine experts said they suspected a shark was to blame based on descriptions of the extent of the injuries, although they had not seen pictures of the bite.

"It is a possibility," said Ruperto Chaparro, a biologist and director of the Sea Grant conservation program in Puerto Rico. "For me, the shark bit her and said, 'This is not what I want to eat' and left."

The woman was bitten late Tuesday while swimming at Mosquito Bay in Vieques, an island popular with tourists just east of Puerto Rico. The bay attracts hundreds of visitors with its bioluminescent waters filled with microscopic organisms that light up when something disturbs them.

The bay's murky waters also act as a nursery for many fish species, including sharks, said Francisco Pagan, a marine biologist at the University of Puerto Rico.

Pagan said he suspected a juvenile shark was to blame after it was startled or it confused the woman's leg with a food source. Tiger, nurse and reef sharks are the most common species in the area, but attacks are extremely rare, he said.

"I would not worry," Pagan said. "This is not at all common."

Puerto Rico has had only six recorded shark attacks, two of them fatal, with the last death reported in 1924, according to statistics from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

The woman was apparently on a guided kayak tour on the bay and jumped into the water, which tourists are allowed to do, said Mark Martin Bras, director of community affairs and marine life exhibit for the Vieques Conservation and Historical Trust.

He said people have seen smaller sharks in the bay, including blacktips and hammerheads, but no attacks or bites have been reported.

"Some people here are in a state of disbelief," he said. "Nobody's panicking, but obviously there is concern because it is a tourism-based island."


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