Texas shark attack victim who lost her calf tried to kick it thinking it was just a big fish: ‘That’s when it grabbed me’
A mom attacked by a shark in Texas on the Fourth of July initially thought it was just a “big fish” — and had planned to kick it away before it grabbed her and bit off her calf.
Tabatha Sullivent and her husband Cary were among the four people attacked when the lone shark started stalking swimmers in the shallow waters of South Padre Island in the Gulf of Mexico last week.
Speaking from her hospital bed days after her terrifying escape, Sullivent told FOX4 that she and her daughter had been out past a sandbar when the massive predator suddenly lunged at her.
“I turned around and saw something dark in the water. And I thought it was a big fish, and I was going to kick it away. That’s when it grabbed me,” the mom recalled.
“I think it let go of me, and I was able to start swimming to the beach with one leg and my arms. It didn’t grab me there. Then I got closer to the beach, and people started pulling me out. My husband had me first but then he dropped me because the shark was in a pursuit.”
Her husband suffered several shark bites to his leg as he fended off the massive beast.
Chilling footage shot by a witness showed the shark still stalking the shore as bystanders rushed to wrap a makeshift tourniquet below around Sullivent’s knee.
She could be heard wailing in pain as the blood seeped out of her.
“My leg is pretty much gone,” Sullivent said. “They flushed it out today. It’s all the way to the bone. It did not go through the bone.”
“If my husband didn’t jump into action and everyone else on the beach. If I didn’t have people pulling me out — not just to pull me out but jumping between the shark and me — I don’t think it would’ve stopped,” she added.
Sullivent, who suffered the most serious injuries in the attack, can only just manage to wiggle her toes.
She is scheduled to have surgery again on Tuesday but doctors don’t yet know what her level of mobility will be.
The conditions of the other two swimmers who were bitten by the same shark wasn’t immediately known.
In the aftermath, Texas Parks and Wildlife officials described the attacks as “abnormal and unprecedented.”
The last time a shark attacked someone in the region was five years earlier, authorities said.
