What was supposed to be a fun day at the beach turned into a deadly misfortune for 18-year-old Bruna Gobbi, who died after being bit by a shark.
The teenager was at the verge of drowning with her cousin Daniele Gobbi at Boa Viagem beach in the northeastern Brazil city of Recife on Monday, when lifeguards realized and quickly went to their aid.
Two lifeguards swam out to them, while a third sped ahead on a jetski. As they approached the pair a sudden flurry of movement created a splash around Bruna followed by a pool of red around her.
A shark had attacked Gobbi's left leg, the local government's social defense secretariat said. Rescuers managed to move her to shore, and then she was rushed to the Restauração hospital, where her leg was amputated.
A hospital official who asked not to be named told the Daily Mail Bruna had "lost a lot of blood" and died of her injuries later that night.
"The rescuers came in a matter of five minutes, but to us it felt like five years," Gobbi's cousin, Daniele, told Globo TV.
"We knew there were risks of an attack, but I didn't think that it would happen in the shallow (water), but in the deep," she added.
Although sharks have attacked 57 people off of Recife's coast since record-keeping began in 1992, Bruna Gobbi became the first woman to die from it in the coastal state of Pernambuco, Brazilian newspaper "O Globo" reported.
"We speculate, based on the season and the conditions, that it was a bull shark," Rosangela Lessa, president of the agency that monitors shark attacks, told Globo TV.
The local government's security cameras captured the attack and rescue on video, and additional eyewitness footage of the attack's aftermath shows Gobbi's left leg with the flesh shorn off to the bone.
Below are the two graphic videos. The first one shows the attack and rescue from security cameras, and the second one (NSFW) shows the injured teenager as she was being helped.
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