An Iowa woman had her leg amputated after a shark bit her left calf while scuba diving in the Bahamas last week.
Heidi Ernst, 73, was attacked by the shark while scuba diving south of Taino Beach on June 7, according to a GoFundMe fundraiser. After the shark bit Ernst’s leg, she fought it off and managed to return to the boat.
“All I could see is that it was shaking his head side to side,” Ernst told WSVN.
Ernst was flown to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, where doctors decided to amputate her left leg because it was infected, the station reported.
Ernst’s friends started a GoFundMe page to help her pay for medical expenses. Currently, the page has raised over $11,000 of the $30,000 goal.
“Heidi is fearless, kind, gentle, giving, honest, loves everything nature, has an amazing green thumb, an avid underwater photographer and a wonderful friend,” her friend Kim Barnes said in the GoFundMe post.
Ernst is an experienced scuba diver with over 500 dives under her belt. She’s never been afraid of sharks, Ernst told WSVN.
Recent shark attacks
In 2022, there were 57 unprovoked shark bites worldwide, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File. Of the 41 shark attacks in the United States last year, only one was fatal.
In May, a shark bit a 15-year-old girl who was surfing in New Jersey. This past April, a Hawaii surfer suffered a bite to the leg while off the coast of Honolulu.
More:Where is the shark attack capital of the world? Global shark stats tell story over 47 years
A total of 1,218 shark bites and attacks have been recorded in the past 47 years worldwide, and about 14% of those were fatal. The vast majority of bites are unprovoked (94%), while a small number of attacks (6%) are provoked.
The odds of being attacked and killed by a shark are 1 in 3.7 million.
Contributing: Chad Gillis and Camille Fine, USA TODAY
