Newly released bodycam footage captured the terrifying moments after a young girl nearly lost her hand in a shark attack while snorkeling off the coast of Florida.
Little Leah Lendel, 9, was snorkeling near the shore at a beach in Boca Grande on Wednesday when a shark attacked, partially severing her hand, her mother, Nadia Lendel, told NBC Miami.
“And then she flies out and like I look over, I don’t know if I heard a yell or what, but she went that and I see her hand hanging, like a piece and there’s blood everywhere,” her mother told police through tears.
“I started screaming to my husband to hurry up and get out because I had so many babies, I didn’t know who to grab. I got the point, it’s a shark,” she continued.
Police body camera footage captured the moments following the horrifying attack, as rescue crews and several men came to the girl’s aid.
“Hi there, sweetheart, you’re being very brave,” an officer can be heard telling the little girl as rescue crews work to stop the bleeding.
Leah’s father, who was swimming several feet away, rushed to help his daughter to shore while several witnesses jumped into action to help wrap up her hand.
“We were just sitting down, taking lunch and we start hearing like, ‘Help,’ so we jumped out of the water, we jumped out of the chair, he jumped on the water to take the shark out of his hands,” said one of the good Samaritans.
The witnesses had wrapped Leah’s hand in towels before she was airlifted to a hospital for emergency surgery.
According to the girl’s family, the surgeons were able to fix her hand, though she will still require therapy in order for her hand to function properly again.
“The doctors were able to do some miracles and put her hand back together,” her uncle, Max Derinsky told NBC News. “She will be in the hospital for a while and then a lot of physical therapy to hopefully get her hand functioning again.”
