Surgeons reattach 10-year-old girl’s hand nearly lost in Florida shark attack | Florida

A 10-year-old girl whose hand was reattached after being severed in a shark attack has spoken of her remarkable recovery following a six-hour “miracle” operation that allowed her to start knitting outfits again for her beloved Barbie dolls.

Leah Lendel’s right hand was left hanging by flaps of skin after she was bitten by a 9-foot bull shark while she was snorkeling with her family at a beach in Boca Grande, Florida, in June.

Her mother, Nadia, was frantically trying to get Leah and her younger sisters, aged one and three, out of the shallow water and onto land. Nearby construction workers ran to help, one placing a tourniquet on Leah’s arm and others wrapping the wound in a towel until first responders arrived.

Leah, who was nine years old when she was injured, and her mother spoke about their ordeal for the first time in an interview on CBS Inside Edition Monday night, recalling the shark attack and praising the skills of surgeons at Tampa General Hospital (TGH). Leah was able to move two fingers within 24 hours of surgery and is currently undergoing intensive physical therapy to regain as much movement as possible.

“They told me they were going to put my hand back, but I didn’t really believe them. It’s impossible,” Leah said when asked what doctors told her before the operation.

The fourth grader said she barely saw the shark that bit her, which quickly fled, but she realized what had happened.

“I think I saw his tail, and then he let go, and then I screamed, and I saw my hand bleeding, and I knew it was a shark,” she said.

“I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do now? Will I ever see my hand again?”

Video taken by a sheriff’s deputy at the scene showed Nadia Lendel in a distressed state, telling responders what happened. She told Inside Edition that she was in the water a meter away from her daughter when the shark swam over.

“It was just a stump, and his wrist was hanging off, and there was blood flowing everywhere,” she said through tears.

“She was just there. She was just quiet. She wasn’t screaming, she wasn’t making any fuss. She was just there and I looked over to her. [her] and his hand was as if held by a piece of skin, and it seemed as if it were beginning to descend towards the ground.

“I just didn’t want her to bleed out. That was my biggest worry.”

Leah was taken by helicopter to hospital, where x-rays revealed significant tissue loss. But “no bones missing,” Leah said, adding, “I thought I’d never have a hand again. But I still do.”

She was able to move two fingers the day after reattachment and had regained some sensation and movement in all of her fingers over the next two days.

“It’s a miracle…but they had to take some arteries out of his leg to fix all of that. And then they pretty much fixed the tendons,” Nadia Lendel said.

In a statement, a TGH spokesperson said: “Thanks to the quick action of her family, first responders and extraordinary care team, Leah’s story became one of survival and strength. »

He thanked surgeons at the Florida Orthopedic Institute and pediatric experts at TGH’s Muma Children’s Hospital for saving his hand.

Leah worked extensively with an occupational therapist in the months that followed and said she knitted her doll a skirt and hat before a trip to New York for the interview. A GoFundMe appeal to help pay the family’s medical bills was nearing $60,000 Tuesday after the interview aired.

Shark attacks on humans remain rare. In 2024, there were 47 unprovoked shark bites and 24 provoked shark bites worldwide, according to the International Shark Attack File, a resource from the Florida Museum of Natural History. Of the 28 unprovoked attacks in the United States, 14 took place in Florida.