GALVESTON, Texas – An 8-year-old girl is suffering from an infection after she was possibly bitten by a shark at a beach, according to her family.
Harper Ochoa, 8, was bitten in the back of her leg last Saturday while playing in shallow water at a Galveston beach, KWTX reports.
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Harper’s mother, Christa, told KWTX her daughter felt something grab the back of her leg and pushed it off, not knowing what grabbed her.
Ochoa began screaming to family members nearby.
When she got out of the water, her family noticed a “big chunk missing from the back of her leg.”
“At first we thought, was it a stingray?” Christa told KWTX. “It was just so much blood, it was hard to tell what was going on.”
Christa said the doctor confirmed the bite “looked like something from a shark.”
Harper received 13 staples in the back of her right leg, just below her calf, her mother said. She was rehospitalized after the wound became infected.
Christa told KWTX doctors do not anticipate long-term damage and are hopeful for a quick recovery once the infection is treated.
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