Body camera footage shows the moment a nine-year-old girl was pulled to shore after she was badly-mauled by a shark off the Florida coast.
Leah Lendel was snorkeling off the shore of Boca Grande just four feet away from her famous influencer mother Nadia and younger siblings on June 11, when she was bitten by the shark.
Leah ‘screamed’ as she emerged from the water, Nadia told police, sharing how her daughter’s right hand was ‘hanging’ and there was ‘blood everywhere’.
Nadia rushed to get her other children to the shore as her husband, who had been snorkeling ‘some distance away’, swam ‘as fast as possible to shore’, ABC reports.
Construction workers spending their lunch break on the beach jumped into action, with one calling 911 and the other using a towel to ‘make a tourniquet’ and ‘stop the blood loss’.
Paramedics began treatment at the scene, with one heard telling Leah ‘you’re very brave’ as they prepared to airlift her to a hospital in Tampa, more than 100 miles away.
Nadia, a mommy influencer with over 97,000 Instagram followers, told her fans Leah underwent a ‘long surgery to save her hand’ and doctors managed to ‘get blow flow to her entire hand and all of her fingers’.
A GoFundMe account was created in the family’s honor to help support them as Leah battles a ‘long’ journey ‘full of physical and emotional healing’.
Leah Lendel (pictured) was snorkeling off the shore of Boca Grande just four feet away from her mother Nadia and younger siblings on June 11, when she was bitten by the shark
Paramedics began treatment at the scene, with one heard telling Leah ‘you’re very brave’ as they prepared to airlift her to a hospital in Tampa, more than 100 miles away
Body camera video released by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office shows how Nadia was in complete shock after horror struck at the beach. She told officers: ‘She flies out and I look over… and I could see her hand hanging, like a piece, and just blood everywhere’
Body camera video released by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office shows how Nadia was in complete shock after horror struck at the beach Wednesday.
‘She flies out and I look over… and I could see her hand hanging, like a piece, and just blood everywhere,’ Nadia told responding officers.
‘I just started screaming to my husband to hurry up and get out cause I had so many babies and I don’t know who to grab.’
‘I’m just happy she’s alive,’ she added, as she fought back tears.
Good Samaritans who rushed to help the family told police how they ‘jumped into the water to take the shark out of its hands’.
‘There was like four or five kids, so we had to bring everybody out of the water,’ one bystander explained.
Another called 911, telling dispatch: ‘I need medical service ASAP! There’s a shark!’
‘I’m sorry, there’s what?’ the 911 operator replied.
‘A shark,’ the called reiterates. ‘A shark bit the arm of a little kid.’
Leah (pictured in the hospital in Tampa) underwent a ‘long surgery to save her hand’ and doctors managed to ‘get blow flow to her entire hand and all of her fingers’
Leah ‘screamed’ as she emerged from the water, Nadia told police, sharing how her daughter’s right hand was ‘hanging’ and there was ‘blood everywhere’
Construction workers spending their lunch break on the beach jumped into action, with one calling 911 and the other using a towel to ‘make a tourniquet’ and ‘stop the blood loss’. Pictures are paramedics loading Leah into an ambulance after the attack Wednesday
Nadia shared an update on Leah’s condition to her Instagram page and also asked her nearly 100,000 followers to ‘please keep our family in your prayers’
Leah was attacked by an eight-foot long bull shark in the water near the 2200 block of Shore Lane just before noon on Wednesday.
Officials confirmed her injuries were consistent with that of a shark bite, although the dangerous creature was nowhere to seen when emergency responders arrived at the scene.
Alfonso Tello and his coworkers were on lunch break when he heard the girl’s scream. The men rushed to the water to help, unaware they had just witnessed a shark attack.
Tello told local outlets: ‘When we see that little girl come out from the water with no hand, it was like something out – it gets me. Everybody was in shock.’
His coworker Raynel Lugo told WINK, ‘The hand, it was just hanging by this piece
‘The whole thing was completely hanging out.’
‘You can see bones all completely red.’
Although surgeons were able to put Leah’s hand back together, she still has a long road to recovery ahead.
‘They had to get arteries from her leg to the hand. Got the blood flow back to her hand. Install pins in bones. Still has open tissues,’ Nadia told WZVN. ‘They will be monitoring her here for a week. But thank God she can move her fingers.’
Leah Lendel, nine, was snorkeling off the shore of Boca Grande with her mother Nadia and her siblings around noon on June 11, when she was bitten by the shark
With the help of nearby construction workers, the family (with Leah Lendel pictured top row left) called 911 and created a tourniquet out of a beach towel to stop the bleeding
Alfonso Tello, told local outlets, ‘When we see that little girl come out from the water with no hand, it was like something out – it gets me. Everybody was in shock’
Leah Lendel’s uncle Max Derinsky also offered NBC News further details on the girl’s condition: ‘The doctors were able to do some miracles and put her hand back together.
‘She will be in the hospital for a while and then a lot of physical therapy to hopefully get her hand functioning again.’
The family is facing ‘overwhelming medical bills’ in the coming months, with Leah likely yo need additional ‘surgeries, physical therapy, counseling, and more’, according to the family’s GoFundMe.
‘On what was supposed to be a fun and sunny day at the beach in Boca Grande, 9-year-old Leah experienced a terrifying and life-altering event,’ the campaign stats.
‘While playing in the water with her siblings, she was bitten on her hand by a shark and had to be rushed to the hospital by Life Flight.
‘We’re thankful to Jesus for the quick response of emergency crews and the skill of the medical team, she is now stable and going through surgery – fighting hard for her road to recovery.’
The crowdfunder has already raised more than $34,000, as of Friday morning.
Nadia has also asked her followers to ‘please keep our family in your prayers’.
A summer vacation took a turn for the worse when Leah Lendel (pictured) was attacked by a shark
Lendel was snorkeling off the shore of Boca Grande with her mother and siblings around noon on Wednesday
She emerged from the water, on her own, completely covered in blood. Pictured: The family’s beach inflatable
In Boca Grande, May through July is known as tarpon season, when the large fish are most populous around the island. Their most active period also coincides with shark mating season.
The Boca Grande Fire Department Chief CW Blosser told local news outlets that in his time as chief, he’d only seen two shark attacks. Both of them were during tarpon season.
According to data half of United States shark attacks in 2024 took place in Florida. Although that number was still relatively low, with 14 cases reported in Florida, according to the University of Florida.
Daily Mail has reached out to Nadia Lendel for comment.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .