Two doctors are being praised for coming to the aid of a 15-year-old girl after she was bitten by a shark at a Florida beach on Friday.
Ryan Forbes and Mohammed Ali were riding boogie boards with their children when they saw people panicking along Rosemary Beach in Walton County.
“We all started running out of the water,” Forbes told WKRG. “I grabbed my son. He grabbed his daughter, and then as we were getting to the beach, I looked to the left and I saw the cloudy red water from the shark attack.”
The two helped Lulu Gribbin, 15, and her friend, McCray Gaust, 17. Gribbin suffered serious injuries to her upper leg and arm, while the other girl only suffered minor injuries to her leg, the outlet reported.
The girls were waist-deep in water when the shark attacked them.
Doctors, trauma nurses and emergency medical technicians rushed to help. The group tied tourniquets on Gribbin’s arms and legs and applied pressure to his wounds to try to stop the bleeding.
Ali said, “When I looked at him and saw the severity of the injury, I realized anybody with any kind of medical knowledge needed to help.”
Most of the medical professionals working together did not know each other. Forbes, a family medicine doctor in Alabama, and Ali, an interventional radiologist in Mississippi, visit the area every year with their families.
Still, Forbes said it seemed as if he had been working with the group of respondents for years.
“It was amazing. It was God’s will that everybody was there to help at the same time,” he said.
After being admitted to the hospital, the two spoke to the girl’s family and were told that she was expected to survive.
Gibbins’ mother, Ann Blair Gribbin, posted online about how her daughter received care and detailed the journey.
“This was our first mother-daughter beach trip, and we were all extremely excited. We had an amazing first two days spending time with friends at the beach and going out to dinner,” the mom wrote.
He said that the family was returning to the beach when they heard the sound of sharks and tried to find their daughter. But then panic set in and the family started running towards the beach.
“There was a crowd of people on the beach just watching. I came up to a group of people surrounding someone on the ground and looked down and it was Lulu who was there. Ellie found me and said mom it’s Lulu. I saw the wound on her leg and started screaming,” the mom wrote.
“She was lifeless, her eyes closed, mouth white and pale. The wound on her leg or whatever was left of her leg looked like something out of a movie. I finally reached back to her and took her hand and she looked at me, and I told her I was there,” Lulu’s mother wrote.
“Her eyes were open. I didn’t know how long she had been there or what had happened. Almost immediately the truck arrived at the beach and the EMTs loaded her onto a board and put her back in the truck and she was transported, she was airlifted.”
Ms Gibbin’s mother told how her daughter lost her left arm in the attack and had to have part of her right leg amputated.
“I’m not sure who saw the shark first, but Lulu said the shark bit her arm and then her leg and then went to her other friend and grabbed his leg. Lulu said one of the men grabbed her other arm and pulled her out and another little boy helped her get to shore,” the mom wrote
“I will always be grateful to the three surgeons at this hospital and all the nursing staff and doctors who saved Lulu. I’m grateful to the doctors and nurses who were on the beach that day. I’m grateful to the EMTs on the beach and the crew in the air. I’m grateful to the guy who pulled her out of the water.”
It is not known what type of shark attacked the girls.
About two hours before the incident, a 45-year-old woman was bitten by a shark near Watersound Beach, about two miles from Rosemary Beach. The woman was rushed to a trauma center with serious injuries to her abdomen and arm. Part of her arm had to be amputated.
Walton County sheriff’s deputies spotted a 14-foot hammerhead shark near the area of the attack. They said the presence of sharks in the water was not unusual.
“We want to reiterate that sharks are always present in the Gulf,” the sheriff’s office said in a written statement. “Swimmers and beachgoers should use caution when swimming and be aware of their surroundings.”
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