A pregnant woman was reported to have risked her life and jumped into the Florida Keys waters to save her husband from a shark attack.
Andrew Eddy was snorkeling with his family in the Florida Keys' turquoise waters when suddenly a shark attacked him and bit his shoulder. Margot Dukes-Eddy, who happened to be on the boat at the time, saw a shark fin and blood filling around the spot where her husband had entered. Despite being pregnant, she didn't hesitate to jump into the water and pull her husband to safety.
Vacation turned into a horrific shark attack
The Atlanta couple was on vacation with Dukes-Eddy's parents, sister, and sister's boyfriend. They were spending a day of snorkeling and swimming at Sombrero Reef while aboard a private motorboat.
Dukes was reported to have managed to avoid further injury during the attack; however, deputies at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said the bite wound was severe. The bite wound was about eight inches wide. Upon reaching the beach, medics flew him to Ryder Trauma Center at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital.
According to reports, some snorkelers from other boats in the water also spotted the bull shark in the area they described to be as much as 9 feet in length. George Burgess from the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File agreed that it was likely a bull shark that attacked Eddy.
"He was flailing and screaming."
In the video, Dukes-Eddy was asked if her husband was down underwater when he got attacked. She said that her husband had just jumped in to snorkel when she saw the shark's fin come up.
Margot's mother said that the next thing she knew, Eddy was already flailing and screaming, and blood was all over. Eddy was unsure then if he could make it to the ladder, and that was when her daughter, who was due to deliver in a month, decided to jump in.
She then called 911. In the 911 recording, Margot's mother could be heard screaming, "My son-in-law just got bitten by a shark in his shoulder. We need help immediately!" Further, in the video, Margot can be seen being consoled by her sister and mother, and she started writing a statement about the incident.
The deputy asked her if she saw the shark and if she knew how big it would have been. She said that all that she saw was its fin. She said she thinks her husband was bitten once, and then it seemed to have swum off as if swimming towards the boat. She said that it looked like the shark only got Eddy once, but the bite was big.
Since 1882, 17 unprovoked shark bites were recorded in Monroe County, while Volusia County in northern Florida had recoded 312 so far. Burgess explained that the Florida Keys does not have the waves that make the spot popular for water snorkeling, scuba diving, and just spending time around sandbars. Bulls, he said, are regularly seen at the attack while tiger sharks are less seen but still common.
