Nurse is devastated by a shark while snorkeling in front of idyllic islands and turns the sea blood red
A vacationer was brutally attacked by a shark while snorkeling off the idyllic Galapagos Islands.
Delia Yriarte, 42, was horrified to see the water turn red after she was bitten on her right leg while swimming near the tiny island of Mosquera.
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The nurse, a US citizen, was in the water observing sea creatures on July 4 when she was suddenly devastated.
Delia told local media, “It felt like a hit so I didn’t know what it was at first.”
“While I was Bathe I felt my leg go numb. “When I turned around, I saw that there was a lot of blood.”
She added: “By the time we got to the beach I was already feeling drained.
“I knew what kind of wound it was, I saw it was deep and I knew I was losing a lot of blood.”
Dramatic footage shows the woman being carried off a rubber dinghy with her leg wrapped in fabric.
In another clip, she can be seen exercising her right leg with the help of a doctor after her wounds have been stitched up.
Renato Pacheco, doctor at hospital República del Ecuador on Santa Cruz Island said: “She is stable, she is conscious, she has had surgery on her right leg. She didn’t lose her leg.”
Pacheco stressed that the woman never lost consciousness or mobility in her leg and foot.
The Ecuadorian Navy said the injured woman was transferred from Santa Cruz Island to San Cristóbal Island before being flown on a military plane to the mainland city of Guayaquil.
The Galapagos Archipelago is approximately 600 miles off the Ecuadorian coast.
The ecological diversity of the islands helped Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution through natural selection.
UNESCO declared the islands a natural heritage of mankind in 1979.
Today, tourists flock to the islands to spot whales, sharks and other wildlife.
In 2018, British businessman Andrew Newman was attacked by a shark off the coast of Santa Fe Island.
He said he was watching some sea lions when he suddenly felt a strong bite on his leg and realized a 12-foot (3.5 m) shark was attacking him.
Newman said he hit the shark in the head with his GoPro until it was able to free itself.
Earlier this month, a man who was bitten five times by a mako shark off the coast of Egypt told how he was rescued by a heroic group of animals.
Martin Richardson described how the predator halted its brutal attack when a pod of dolphins appeared behind it.
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