The father of a 17-year-old girl who was attacked by a shark off the North Carolina coast earlier this month shared the dramatic story of how he rescued his daughter by punching the shark repeatedly until it let go.
Charlie Winter was in the water near his daughter, Paige, when he heard other teenagers swimming with them at Atlantic Beach shout, "Paige! Shark! Get her!" But when he looked in the water, he saw only a five-foot trail of pink blood in the water.
Winter dove in and grabbed his daughter, pulling a shark up out of the water along with her.
"It was a big shark ... I immediately just started to hit it," he said at a press conference Friday. "I don't know how many times I punched it, but I hit it with everything I could and it let go."
Then the former paramedic ran for shore, applying pressure on his daughter's badly injured leg while the shark chased him "at arm's length," he said.
In the struggle, Winters added that his daughter had been attempting to pry open the shark's mouth with her hands. Afterward, he said she was calm and just kept repeating the word, "dad," as he carried her to safety.
"She's a tough little thing," he said with emotion in his voice.
Doctors said the teenager's left leg and two fingers on her left hand were amputated after what was likely a bull shark attack, based on tooth markings found on her bones. Winter said he saw two sharks in the water just after the attack, but doesn't know what types of sharks they were.
Attacks like this are rare, according to Eric Toschlog, chief of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at Vidant Medical Center. He was one of the doctors who treated Paige.
"I have not seen a wound of this severity, ever," Toschlog said, adding that there are usually only two or three attacks off North Carolina every year.
According to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida in Gainesville, a research organization that tracks shark bite reports worldwide, there were a total of 32 unprovoked shark attacks in the United States in 2018, making up 48 percent of the worldwide total. The number was down from 53 attacks in 2017.
Despite her injuries, doctors said Paige is in good spirits and should complete physical therapy and rehabilitation within six to 12 months. In a video shown at the conference, Paige said she wanted to use this incident to do something good for the environment and for sharks.
"Sharks are still good people and that's just kind of the truth, they're still so good and they're so cool," she said with a smile.
The June 2 incident was one of two shark attacks in North Carolina so far this month. A 19-year-old surfer said he was bitten on his foot last weekend.
Last year, North Carolina had three confirmed shark attacks, according to the International Shark Attack File.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
