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Woman All Smiles in Photo With 2-Foot Nurse Shark That Bit Her

0:22
Boca Raton Fire Rescue
Woman Taken to Hospital With Shark Still Attached to Her Arm
Alex Smoake
ByBRIAN MCBRIDE
May 17, 2016, 11:16 AM

— -- A woman is recovering after being bitten by a 2-foot-long nurse shark in Florida over the weekend.

She has since been released from the hospital — but not without being photographed with her friends and new aquatic companion in tow.

Related Articles

Woman Taken to Hospital With 2-Foot Nurse Shark Still Attached to Her Arm

Friends shared a picture on Facebook Sunday showing the woman smiling from her hospital bed, holding the dead shark in a bag. Her friends buried it later in the day.

A 23-year-old woman was taken to the hospital with the nurse shark still attached to her forearm in Boca Raton, Florida, May 15, 2016.
Boca Raton Fire Rescue Services
A 23-year-old woman was taken to the hospital with the nurse shark still attached to her forearm in Boca Raton, Florida, May 15, 2016.
Boca Raton Fire Rescue Services

The woman, 23, is "handling it like a champ," one of her friends told ABC Tampa Bay affiliate WFTS-TV, which did not identity her by name.

Emergency crews responded on May 15 to a 911 call of a woman bitten by a shark. "When it [the call] came in, I don't think anyone knew what to expect when they got on scene," fire inspector Bob Lemmons of Boca Raton Fire Rescue Services told WFTS.

Though the shark was killed before the fire department arrived, it was still attached. "It's something so unique. It’s nothing we’ve ever had before," Lemmons said.

The woman was taken to the hospital with the shark still on her forearm.

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