The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A SHARK attack has left a woman from Switzerland nursing severe wounds in hospital, police reported yesterday.

“Preliminary information indicates shortly after noon, this woman was on a private snorkeling trip in waters near Rose Island when she was attacked by a shark,” Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Stephen Dean said.

“The woman was transported to shore and taken to hospital where she is detained in stable condition.”

Pictures of the woman’s injuries were circulated on social media yesterday, and they revealed a severe Achilles heel injury.

This incident happened nearly two months after an American woman was bitten by a shark while snorkeling in the Bahamas.

On June 2, Tiffany Johnson, a mother of three, was in the midst of a seven-day cruise with her husband when the attack happened.

She lost her arm while snorkeling in waters near Athol Island, but credited her survival to the “grace of God.”

After the attack, the North Carolina woman told news station WYFF: “I didn’t feel any pain, I just felt like I had run into something. I just casually turned to the right to see what I bumped into and I was face to face with a shark and he had my arm in his mouth.

“I went to yank it (my arm) out of his mouth and that’s when he clamped down and we started to struggle,” Mrs Johnson said.

“Immediately when I pulled it out, I just saw that I had lost my arm,” the 32-year-old mother said tearfully. “And it was just mangled.

“I had this determination like I cannot describe and I thought, ‘I’m not going to die here, this isn’t the end for me.’” She was about 15 to 30 feet away from the boat.

Mrs Johnson told the news station she was able to swim back to the boat using her left arm. Her husband, hearing her screams, swam out to meet her and helped her get back to the boat and up the ladder.

The shark had torn from her elbow down to her hand. She said it wasn’t until she got to the ambulance that she felt pain and then it was excruciating.

US experts believe the woman was attacked by a Tiger shark.