'There was blood everywhere': Horror for influencer mum as her nine-year-old daughter is mauled by a shark
An influencer mum watched in horror as her nine-year-old daughter was mauled by a shark on the beach.
Leah Lendel was snorkeling off the shore of Boca Grande, on the Florida coast, just four feet away from her influencer mother Nadia Lendel and younger siblings on Wednesday June 11, when she was bitten by the shark.
Leah “screamed” as she emerged from the water, Nadia told police, adding that there was “blood everywhere”, and her daughter's right hand was “hanging”.
Nadia rushed to get her other young children to the shore and her husband, who had been snorkeling “some distance away”, also made his way to the shore as quickly as possible, ABC reports.
Nearby construction workers who had been enjoying their lunch break on the beach also went to Leah’s aid, with one calling emergency services and the other using a towel to “make a tourniquet” and “stop the blood loss”.
Paramedics arrived and began treatment at the scene, with one heard telling Leah “you're very brave”. She was then airlifted to a hospital in Tampa, more than 100 miles away, for further treatment.
Nadia, a mum influencer who has more than 97,000 Instagram followers, told her fans about the incident and said that Leah underwent a “long surgery to save her hand” and doctors managed to “get blood flow to her entire hand and all of her fingers”.
A GoFundMe account was created on behalf of Leah and her family to help support them as the youngster battles a “long” journey “full of physical and emotional healing”.
Body camera video released by the Lee County Sheriff's Office shows how Nadia was in complete shock after the horrific incident. “She(Leah) flies out and I look over . . . and I could see her hand hanging, like a piece, and just blood everywhere,” Nadia told responding officers.
“I just started screaming to my husband to hurry up and get out cause I had so many babies and I don't know who to grab. I'm just happy she's alive,” she added, as she became emotional.
Good Samaritans who rushed to help the family told police how they”'jumped into the water to take the shark out of its hands”. “There was like four or five kids, so we had to bring everybody out of the water,” one bystander explained.
Another called for paramedics, telling the person who answered: “I need medical service ASAP! There's a shark!” . . . A shark bit the arm of a little kid.”
Leah was reportedly attacked by an eight-foot long bull shark in the water near the 2200 block of Shore Lane just before noon on Wednesday.
Officials confirmed her injuries were consistent with that of a shark bite, although the creature could not be found when emergency responders arrived at the scene.
Alfonso Tello and his coworkers were on lunch break when he heard the girl's scream. The men rushed to the water to help, unaware they had just witnessed a shark attack. Tello told local outlets: “When we see that little girl come out from the water with no hand, it was like something out – it gets me. Everybody was in shock.”
His coworker Raynel Lugo told WINK: “The hand, it was just hanging by this piece. The whole thing was completely hanging out. You can see bones all completely red.”
Although surgeons were able to put Leah's hand back together, she still has a long road to recovery ahead. “They had to get arteries from her leg to the hand. Got the blood flow back to her hand. Install pins in bones. Still has open tissues,' Nadia told WZVN. 'They will be monitoring her here for a week. But thank God she can move her fingers.”
Leah Lendel's uncle Max Derinsky also spoke to NBC News about his niece's condition: “The doctors were able to do some miracles and put her hand back together. She will be in the hospital for a while and then a lot of physical therapy to hopefully get her hand functioning again.”
The family is facing “overwhelming medical bills” in the coming months, according to the GoFundMe page, with Leah likely to need additional “surgeries, physical therapy, counseling, and more”.
A description on the page reads: “On what was supposed to be a fun and sunny day at the beach in Boca Grande, 9-year-old Leah experienced a terrifying and life-altering event. While playing in the water with her siblings, she was bitten on her hand by a shark and had to be rushed to the hospital by Life Flight.
“We’re thankful to Jesus for the quick response of emergency crews and the skill of the medical team, she is now stable and going through surgery - fighting hard for her road to recovery.”
The page has already raised more than $40,000 at the time of writing, on the morning of Saturday (June 14).