A 13-year-old girl from Florida was attacked by a bull shark while swimming in Fort Pierce on May 11. Fortunately, Ella Reed’s quick thinking saved her life. After she was initially bitten in the stomach, she used her arm to block the shark from causing further injury and hit it in the face with her other arm, all while warning her friend to swim to safety, according to NBC News. Thankfully the teenager is OK, but she did need 19 stitches after the shark attack.
Though Reed reportedly admitted she has had some difficulty sleeping after the accident, the shark attack is not stopping her from getting back to the beach, the news outlet reported.
‘What the heck is happening?’ Reed remembers thinking during the shark attack.
Reed, an eighth grader from Fort Pierce, Florida, lives across the street from the beach but had never been face to face with a shark before, per NBC News. Reed valiantly fought off the shark but was still wounded in her knee, arm, torso, and finger.
The teen said she felt the shark bite her stomach but managed to block another bite with her arm. “I remember just breathing really heavily, and then when it latched on to my stomach, not being able to breathe at all because I was just like, ‘What the heck is happening?'” Reed said, according to Today.
“It bit me in the stomach first. And right as it bit me in the stomach, I shoved my arm where it was biting me so it didn’t get my stomach and it got my arm instead. Then I hit it with my other hand, like hit its nose or its face,” Reed explained via Today.
Her family initially thought she was joking when she had a FaceTime call with them.
Reed managed to get out of the water, at which point she video called her brother for help. Her mother, Devin Reed, reportedly said she didn’t think her daughter was serious at first.
“At first I thought she was joking actually, and then she says, ‘I’m not joking!’ And she took the camera and she panned it on her body, and I kind of just froze and freaked out. Her first thing was to tell her friend to run, not ask for help,” Devin Reed said, according to NBC News. “She was saving her friend.”
The mother met the 13-year-old after driving up from the beach in a golf cart and drove her to the fire department. From there she went to the emergency room, the news outlet reported.
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Though shark attacks are rare, Florida has the highest number of recorded shark bites.
The chances of being attacked and killed by a shark are reportedly low; the odds are 1 in 3,748,067), according to Surfer Today. According to the Florida Museum, the 2022 worldwide total of 57 unprovoked cases is the lowest it’s been in five years, with 70 being the average number of annual incidents, with just nine being fatal.
Florida was at the top of the chart for highest number of shark bites in 2022, however, accounting for 39% of the US total and 28% of the worldwide total of unprovoked bites, per Florida Museum.
Reed is proud of her scars.
Though Reed ended up with 19 stitches from the shark attack — five on her torso, and 14 on her leg — she’s not letting it stop her from going back to the beach and becoming a marine biologist one day, according to NBC News.
Her mother said Ella is proud of her scars. “She’s like, ‘If I went through it, I’m going to show people. No, she will not let me help her with those scars whatsoever,” Devin Reed shared with NBC news.
