AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. (WFLA) – A 16-year-old girl is at home recovering Sunday evening after she was attacked by a shark while on vacation in Florida.
It happened at Amelia Island in Nassau County while Jackie Jozaitis, 16, was celebrating her friend’s birthday.
Jozaitis told News13’s sister station 8 On Your Side’s Marco Villarreal she and her friends woke up early to watch the sunrise and do some boogie boarding. But when she was in the water, she suddenly felt a severe bite on the back of her foot.
She ran out of the water, up to the beach and to the pool deck of the resort she was staying at. Hotel staff was able to apply pressure and slow the bleeding until paramedics picked her up and took her to the hospital. That’s where the doctor’s determined it was a shark that attacked her.
“They were so amazingly helpful and friendly,” she said. “They were really the best I could have asked for. They were so great, and the paramedic called on me to check on me.”
Jozaitis’ mother told Villarreal the shark bite missed severing the 16-year-old’s Achilles Heel by a fraction of an inch.
