WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Three women are recovering Friday evening after each of them was bitten by a shark while in the Florida panhandle. The two incidents happened 4 miles and 90 minutes apart in South Walton County.
Around 1 p.m. Friday afternoon, Walton County first responders rushed to the scene of a shark-related incident.
A 45-year-old woman was swimming with her husband between the first and second sandbar when she was bitten by a shark.
“She was transported in critical condition to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center. As a trauma patient, she had significant injuries to her lower torso, as well as an amputation to her arm. And so last word, she was in critical condition,” South Walton Fire District Chief, Ryan Crawford said.
But the attacks didn’t stop there.
About an hour and a half later a second call came in for another shark bite. This time for two teenagers just four miles east of the first location. Authorities say they can’t determine whether the same shark was responsible for all the attacks.
Officials said the two girls were about waist-deep in the Gulf with a group of friends.
“There was a lot of activity movement. And then they too were also bit by shark. They were rapidly brought out of the water. One of those young ladies was transported in critical condition to Ascension Sacred Heart of Pensacola as a trauma patient as well. She had severe injuries to her lower extremities. As well, also as an amputated upper extremity,” Crawford said.
The other teenager had superficial wounds to her foot and was taken to Ascension Sacred Heart Bay.
Officials said shark incidents are not common but even more rare that there were two in such a short time frame.
“We always talk about the water at dusk and early in the morning, which are typical feeding time for some of these large marine predators. This is an anomaly, everything from it being three victims to where it’s at. All we can do is respond control what we can control, mitigate what we can,” Sheriff Michael Adkinson said.
At this time it is unknown what kind of shark or sharks bit the victims or if there are any underlying conditions as to why the sharks may be that close to the shoreline. But Walton County officials will work with experts to try to find a reason.
“There was a story just the other day about orcas in Destin. You know, I don’t know whether the water temperatures warmer or, you know, currents. We don’t we don’t know what what if there’s any kind of or this is just random, you know, circumstance. So try to understand that so that we can better be, you know, educators here for the community,” Adkinson added.
This is the first reported shark attack in Walton County within the last five years, the last fatal attack was in 2005.
Officials also wanted to extend a thank you to bystanders who quickly jumped into action to help treat the victims before emergency officials were on the scene.
Dr. Ryan Forbes and Dr. Mohammad Ali were at the beach when the attack happened. They spoke to NewsNation about the experience, saying they had to step in and help.
“We all started running out of the water, grabbed my son, he grabbed his daughter and we were running toward the beach and then looked over to the left as we’re getting to the beach and saw cloudy red water. Got there and saw the severity of the injuries, realized that anybody with any kind of medical knowledge needed to help,” they said.
Bay and Walton counties closed the beaches to the public with double red flags as an added precaution. Bay County will fly purple and single red flags on Saturday.
Walton County officials will wait until Saturday morning to make a decision on their flag warning system.