The Sites family has been planning their vacation to Myrtle Beach

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Karen Sites traveled from Pennsylvania to South Carolina for vacation, solely to find yourself within the hospital for surgical procedure and a whole bunch of stitches on the very first day, after being attacked by a shark.

**WARNING – Some of the photographs shared on this video are graphic. **

“I’ll sit on the sand however I ain’t going within the water,” mentioned Brian Sites, the sufferer’s grandson.

Before at the moment, eight-year-old Brian cherished enjoying within the sand and taking an occasional dip within the ocean.

The Sites family has been planning their vacation to Myrtle Beach for over a yr now.

“I simply felt one thing I assume chunk me and I regarded down and there was a shark on my arm, and I used to be solely in waist-deep water and I saved pushing at it to get it off my arm after which it did,” mentioned Karen Sites.

It was simply after midday on their first full day of vacation when their journey would take a surprising flip.

“I couldn’t even see the shark coming up, but all I saw was she was…the shark jumped up and it didn’t even bite like all the way, like I saw the movement of its tail like going to the side and then she went like, she screamed a little bit but like, as soon as she touched it, it just fell into the water,” mentioned Brian.

The 8-year-old was solely ten toes away from his grandmother when he watched her get bitten by a shark.

Sites was taken to an area hospital the place she underwent surgical procedure and acquired a whole bunch of stitches.

“It’s very clearly a shark bite, when you look at the arc of the tooth marks and the damage that was done, and my sympathies to the victim,” said Professor Abel. “That’s a horrendous thing to go through.”

Daniel Abel is a professor of Marine Science at Coastal Carolina University.

He says sharks usually are not unusual this time of yr and should you plan to swim in their house, there’s some precautions it’s best to take.

“Not to swim at dawn and dusk,” said Professor Abel. “There’s not many people in the water then, and some of the sharks are closer to shoreline and feeding. Don’t swim where there are schools of small fish, they’re called bait fish offshore, because the sharks will swim in that or with them. Don’t swim near where people are fishing, like in piers.”

Abel says shark bites are extraordinarily uncommon and, whereas he gives his sympathy to victims of shark encounters, it is essential to perceive that sharks are essential to our ecosystem.

“It’s very important that we treat our sharks, and our ocean and our entire planet with more respect than we do now,” mentioned Professor Abel.

Sites says her shark encounter won’t maintain her from having fun with the seaside, she simply wants to heal and get the all clear from her medical doctors.

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