Teen recounts horrifying shark attack at Texas beach: ‘I started punching it’

A 19-year-old Oklahoma woman who was attacked by a shark at a Texas beach during a family vacation last week says she was able to fight off the vicious creature by “punching it.”

Damiana Humphrey said she and her siblings were waist-deep in the water at a beach in Galveston, Texas when a shark suddenly took her hand in its jaws.

“As I was turning, a shark grabbed a hold of my hand,” she told FOX26 Houston . “I looked down and there was a shark attached to my hand, so I guess I started punching it. That part is kind of blurry to me.”

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When the shark let go of her hand, she and her siblings rushed to shore.

Though the horrifying encounter was “blurry” to her, Humphrey said her siblings told her the shark was about four to five feet long.

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It was not immediately clear what type of shark bit the teen.

First responders rushed Humphrey to the hospital where she underwent surgery for four severed tendons in her hand.

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The teen says she was told she’ll have to rest her hand for a number of weeks while she receives physical therapy, meaning she will have to give up her summer job as a patient care technician.

“They said I should make a full recovery with my physical therapy,” she said. “Honestly, I’m just glad it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

Galveston Beach Patrol Chief Peter Davis told the station that shark bites are not common in the area, and are only reported every few years.

“It’s really rare for us to have shark bites here in Galveston. I’ve worked a few of them in my career and the ones I’ve seen were shark bites, not attacks. Meaning it was a case of mistaken identity where they latched onto a human and swam away it sounds like this may have been similar to that,” he said.

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