Nine-Year-Old Survives Shark Attack in Florida, Vows She Will Return to the Water

Another shark attack has been reported on the East coast after a summer of tragedy on the shoreline. Nine-year-old Maggie Crum was attacked by a shark while swimming at New Smyrna Beach in Florida while on vacation. 

Maggie was playing in knee-deep water last Friday when she felt something brush up against her leg. “It felt like a grab at first and then it just ripped into the skin, and that’s when it hurt and felt like a bite,” she told Today.

She was in the water with her sisters, Izzie and Jaidyn, when she noticed the sand underneath her feet was disturbed right before the shark struck. 

Maggie’s mom heard her scream and jumped to action. “She lifted her leg out of the water, and I saw the blood running down her leg,” she told Today. “I was like, ‘Let’s get out of the water!” With as big of cuts as was in the back of her leg, we knew right away it was a shark.”

They went to the hospital immediately after the attack where Maggie received a dozen stitches. 

Maggie shared with local news station WESH that, despite the shark attack, she’s not afraid to get back in the water. 

“I’m pretty sure if it happens once then there’s like zero percent chance it will happen again,” she told them.

According to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File, New Smyrna Beach is known as the “shark attack capital of the world.” However, the family was unaware of that before their visit to the beach. Their parents decided not to say anything because they assumed it would be unlikely a shark would attack in such shallow water. 

Maggie is the tenth person to be attacked by a shark in Volusia County this year, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Earlier this summer, a college student was killed by a swarm of sharks while vacationing in the Bahamas and an 8-year-old was bitten off the coast of North Carolina.