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A Georgia boy fought off a shark in waist-deep water when he was bitten on Fernandina Beach Sunday, The Florida Times-Union reports.
At around 12:30 p.m. 12-year-old Josh Bitner Jr. of Sparks, Ga., was trying to show his parents a sea shell when “something grabbed my leg and turned me around,” he told The Florida Times-Union.
The shark bit Bitner twice before people responded to the attack.
“I was going backward dragging my foot,” Bitner told The Florida Times-Union. “I pushed myself out of the water until people saw I was split open, then they lifted me out of the water.”
Bitner, who is 4-foot-9, believes a lemon shark “a little bit smaller than him” made the attack, The Florida Times-Union reports.
“I grabbed its top fin and lifted it out of the water and punched it,” Bitner told The Florida Times-Union. “It was just instinct. If something is turning me around and hurting me, then I’m going to punch it.”
This marks the seventh shark attack in the Northeast Florida region alone and the first in Fernandina Beach. Sixteen shark-bite reports have been recorded so far in the state of Florida, which includes six in Volusia County, five in Duval and one each in St. Johns and Nassau counties, according to the International Shark Attack File.
Officials said Bitner was treated for leg lacerations and “is in good condition,” The Florida Times-Union reports.
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