A mother who was attacked by a shark in Texas on the Fourth of July says she initially thought it was just a “big fish” and planned to kick the shark before it grabbed her and bit her calf.
Tabatha Salivent and her husband, Cary, were among four people attacked last week when a shark began attacking swimmers in shallow waters off South Padre Island in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I was so scared,” Salivent said from his hospital bed, days after the terrifying escape. Fox 4 She said she and her daughter had just passed a sandbar when suddenly, a large predator attacked her.
“I turned around and saw something black in the water and I thought it was a big fish so I tried to kick it away and then it grabbed me,” his mother recalled.
“I think the shark let me go and I was able to start swimming to the shore using one leg and arm. The shark didn’t get me. Then I got closer to the shore and people started pulling me up. My husband got to me first but the shark started chasing him so he dropped me.”
Her husband was bitten multiple times on the leg while trying to fight off the giant shark.
The horrifying footage captured by an eyewitness The shark was still lurking near the shoreline, and bystanders quickly wrapped a makeshift tourniquet around Salivent’s knee.
She could be heard crying out in pain as blood poured from her.
“I can barely move my leg,” Salivent said. “I had it cleaned today, and it went all the way down to the bone. It didn’t go through the bone.”
“If my husband hadn’t jumped in and if everyone else on the beach hadn’t jumped in, if there hadn’t been people to pull me out, not just pull me out but jump in between the shark and me, the shark would not have stopped,” she added.
Salivent, the most seriously injured in the attack, can barely move his toes.
She is scheduled to undergo surgery again on Tuesday, but doctors are not yet sure what her mobility will be.
The condition of two other swimmers who were also bitten by the shark was not immediately known.
After the incident, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials called the attack “unusual and unprecedented.”
Officials say the last time a shark attacked a person in the area was five years ago.
