A shark bite won't keep a Florida athlete down too long, even though she will be sidelined for the rest of the track season.
According to WKMG-TV, Alysa Whetro, 13, was bitten by a shark at Cocoa Beach on Sunday. Whetro was in the water body boarding with friends when she felt a sharp pain in her left ankle. The attack left her with lacerations on her foot and a partially severed Achilles tendon.
Whetro isn't the only person to suffer a shark bite so far this year after there were two shark attacks on the same day in Florida this weekend, according to the Orlando Sentinel, there have been five unprovoked shark bites reported in the state so far this year. But, according to George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, the recent rise in shark bites isn't too alarming because it comes from more people coming to the beach each year than the one before.
"If we look at the last 11 decades, each decade has had more attacks than the previous decade, whether you look at it in Florida, the U.S. or in the world," he said. Burgess adds that most of these attacks have been sharks taking a quick bite and darting away --- much like with Whetro --- and this is referred to as a "hit-and-go" attack.
Read more at WKMG-TV and the Orlando Sentinel.
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