'Juvenile' shark bites girl at North Carolina beach
A girl in North Carolina was bitten on her calf by a shark Sunday morning, authorities said.
According to 911 call logs released to ABC News by Brunswick County dispatchers, the girl was in the water off Bald Head Island Beach. The 911 caller, who identified herself as a surf instructor, said she heard the girl scream.
"I work on the beach here as a surf instructor, so I just saw it happen," the caller told the 911 dispatcher. "She was on the sandbar and she screamed and her dad automatically picked her up."
The girl, who wasn't identified, was brought to shore on a surf board and taken to a local hospital.
"We were sitting there and looking out and people were swimming and we saw a girl and her dad, and the girl screamed, and then the dad, like, picked her up and then they started going in as fast as they could and they yelled, 'Shark!' and then everyone got out of the water," eyewitness Rebecca Kenney told ABC News.
The Bald Head Island Department of Public Safety said in a statement to the Associated Press that the girl was "bitten by something believed to be a juvenile shark" and that the wound wasn't life threatening.
Bald Head Island Village Manager Chris McCall said first responders identified the bite as that of a shark based on the type of wound sustained, Wilmington ABC affiliate WWAY reported.
"I knew something was wrong because you could, she wasn't profusely bleeding, but you could see the blood from the shore," Kenney said.
"People are really freaking out about it, but sharks live in the ocean and we never have any problems. This is just a freak accident," she added. "We see sharks all the time, but we've never had any problems with bites."
