Two people were bitten by sharks on Thursday, August 18, in the waters off Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.
Pittsburgh native Karren Sites was enjoying the first day of a family vacation, swimming in shallow water with her 8-year-old grandson when a shark swam up to her and clamped down on her arm.
“I just felt something, I guess, bite me and there was a shark on my arm. I was only in waist-deep water. I kept pushing at it to get it off my arm and it did,” Sites told WPDE.
Her grandson Brian was just 10 feet away and saw the shark attack her.
The 8-year-old said: “I couldn’t even see the shark coming up, but all I saw was the shark jumped up and it didn’t even bite all the way, like I saw the movement of the tail go to the side and then she screamed a little bit and as soon as she touched it , it fell into the water.”
Sites was hospitalized where she underwent surgery and received hundreds of stitches.
Daniel Abel, a professor of Marine Science at Coastal Carolina University, told the outlet that it was “very clearly a shark bite” based on the shape of the wound.
Later on the same day, another person was bitten by a shark just blocks away, the Myrtle Beach Police Department told WPDE.
No further details were immediately available on the incident.
Although the attack occurred just after noon, Abel said this time of year it’s best not to swim at dawn or dusk when there’s not a lot of people in the water and sharks are feeding. He also warned against swimming when schools of fish are near the shore or fishing piers.
Sites said she’ll be back on the beach as soon as she’s cleared by the doctors. Her grandson said he won’t be back in the ocean anytime soon.
“I’ll sit on the sand but I ain’t going in the water,” Brian said.
