Nurse survives bloody shark attack while swimming in Galapagos Islands
A California nurse suffered a gruesome leg injury when she was bitten by a shark while snorkeling off the Galápagos Islands – as harrowing video caught her being evacuated and later exercising her heavily stitched leg.
Delia Yriarte, 42, of San Jose, was vacationing in the famed Ecuadorian archipelago in the Pacific Ocean when she came under attack on July 4 near the inlet of Mosquera, NBC Bay Area reported.
“It felt like a blow so I didn’t initially realize what it was,” the Mexican native told local media, Jam Press reported.
“When I turned around, I saw there was a lot of blood. … I knew what type of wound it was, I saw it was deep and I knew I was losing a lot of blood,” she said.
Footage shows the single mom being carried off a dinghy with her right leg wrapped before she was rushed to Hospital República del Ecuador on Santa Cruz Island.
“She is stable, she is conscious, she underwent surgery on her right leg. She did not lose her leg,” Dr. Renato Pacheco told local media, adding that Yriarte never lost consciousness during the horrific ordeal.
The Ecuadorian Navy said she was later transferred to San Cristóbal Island before leaving on a military plane to the city of Guayaquil on the mainland, according to the news outlet.
“Five tendon repairs, over 100 sutures in my leg, I still have some loss of tissue that needs to be grafted and probably a few more surgeries,” Yriarte told the NBC affiliate.
She said that after being attacked, her leg went numb.
“Then I kept pedaling and I felt that my leg wasn’t responding,” Yriarte told the station. “By the time I got to the shore I was already a little more tired, and I was anxious but then I realized my knee was torn from both sides.
“I’m assuming that because it was so fast my brain didn’t have time to register the pain,” she added.
Graphic video also shows Yriarte exercising her heavily sutured leg with the help of a doctor.
She is now fighting to get back home to her 15-year-old daughter.
“I understand it’s going to be a long process but I’m just lucky that I’m still alive,” Yriarte told the station, adding that she is working with the US consulate and Bay Area hospitals.
She said the doctors have told her that she will be able to walk again but faces a long road ahead.
Read the full article Here
