Horrifying injuries to a woman after a shark attack on her first day of vacation just ten feet from her eight-year-old grandson

A GRANDMOTHER has told how she suffered horrific injuries after being mauled by a shark just ten feet away from her eight-year-old grandson.

Karren Sites was on the first day of a vacation with her family in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when she was bitten on the arm in the shallows.

3

3

“I just felt something, I think it bit me and I looked down and there was a shark on my arm and it was just my waist [deep] water,” Sites told WRAL.

“I kept pushing it to get it off my arm, and then it did,” she said.

Her little grandson Brian was only ten feet away from Karen when the shark appeared out of nowhere.

“I couldn’t even see the shark come up…the shark jumped up and didn’t even take a bite,” Brian said.

“I saw the movement of his tail move to the side, and then, [my grandmother] screamed a bit, but as soon as she touched it, it just fell into the water,” he said.

Brian stays away from the sea for the time being after this terrifying sight.

“I’ll sit on the sand, but I’m not going in the water,” he said.

The sites required hundreds of stitches to be sewn up at a local hospital.

“It’s definitely a shark bite, given the arc of tooth marks and the damage that was done,” Daniel Abel, a professor of marine sciences at Coastal Carolina University, told the outlet.

“My condolences to the victim. This is a terrible thing,” he said.

How to avoid a shark attack

Sharks can be common at this time of year, Professor Abel said.

The only way to truly avoid being attacked by a shark is to stay away from open water, but there are preventive measures you can take when enjoying a swim in the ocean.

Abel said he shouldn’t “swim at dawn and dusk. Then there aren’t many people in the water and some of the sharks are closer to shore and feeding.”

“Don’t swim where there are small schools of fish, they’re called baitfish offshore, the sharks swim in or in them,” advised Abel.

It’s also best to avoid “swimming near places where people fish, like piers,” he said.

While beachgoers have seen quite a few shark attacks this summer, Abel warns against treating sharks just as our predators.

“It is very important that we treat our sharks, our oceans and our entire planet with more respect than we do now,” he said.

3