The mother of one of two teenage girls attacked by a shark in Florida last weekend has described her horror at finding her daughter “lifeless” with parts of her hands and legs bitten off, saying it was “like something out of a movie”.
Fifteen-year-old Lulu Gribbin was attacked on a four-mile stretch of Florida coastline on Friday, 17-year-old McCray Faust of Alabama was bitten in the leg and 45-year-old Virginia woman Elizabeth Foley lost part of her left hand. According to WDHN.
Ms Gribbin’s mother, Ann Blair Gribbin, said she was on a “first mother-daughter beach trip” with other friends from Birmingham when she received word that there was a shark in the ocean, after which Lulu’s twin sister Ellie ran over to tell her Lulu had been attacked.
“When she saw the wounds on her daughter’s legs she started screaming,” her mother said. I wrote on caringbridge.org.
“She had taken her last breath, her eyes were closed, her mouth was blank. The wounds on her legs, or whatever was left of them, were like something from a movie. I finally went back to her and held her hand. She noticed me and told me I was there.”
Two doctors who were on vacation together happened to be in the water at the time of the attack and provided potentially life-saving treatment to the injured girl, who was quickly airlifted to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, about an hour and 20 minutes away by car.
“We have been praying,” the distraught mother wrote.
Upon arriving at the hospital, Gribbin learned her daughter had lost her left hand in the attack and that doctors had to amputate her right leg in half, between the knee and hip.
Her mother said she lost two-thirds of her blood in the horrific attack.
“Obviously no one would wish that on your child, but she is alive,” her mother wrote.
By Saturday, Lulu’s vital signs had improved significantly, the tube was removed from her mouth, and she began breathing on her own.
“This was a big first step,” Gribbin wrote. “Once she was settled, the first words she said to us were, ‘I did it,’ and she did.”
Gribbin expressed her gratitude to the hospital staff and the doctors and nurses who provided her daughter with life-saving treatment on the beach.
“She will undergo multiple surgeries over the next few days and our lives will be changed forever. Lulu is strong, beautiful, brave and so many amazing things. God has a plan for her and we will support her in every way we can,” she wrote.
About an hour and a half before the teenagers were attacked, a 45-year-old Virginia woman, Elizabeth Foley, was bitten by a shark four miles away.
The wife and mother of three suffered serious abdominal injuries and lost her left hand. WTVR reported.
Authorities believe it is the same shark that attacked Foley and the two boys.
