Man chomped by shark in Florida, in critical condition

A man in northeast Florida was airlifted to a hospital with severe injuries after being bitten by a shark Friday.

At 11:15 a.m., the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office responded to a distress call and found the victim on a boat bleeding heavily from the bite. A sheriff’s deputy boarded the vessel and applied a tourniquet.

The man had caught the shark before it attacked him, police said.

“When he got it up out of the water, it lunged and grabbed a hold of his forearm. Which had a pretty bad bite, lost a lot of blood. So he’s in serious condition,” Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper told Jacksonville NBC affiliate WTLV.

The man in his 40s was bitten on his right forearm, Sheriff Leeper said, according to The Florida Times-Union.

The unnamed victim is expected to recover, the NCSO wrote on X.

Authorities didn't say what type of shark attacked the victim. If it's found to be unprovoked, it would be only the ninth such incident in Nassau County since 1882, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File.

Earlier this month, sharks injured three people in two attacks in Walton County in northwest Florida.