Shark bites 12-year-old girl off Hilton Head Island days after 9-year-old almost lost hand in Florida attack

A 12-year-old girl was airlifted from South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island after she was bitten by a shark, authorities said.

The girl was bitten in the waters off Hilton Head’s Sea Pines on Tuesday, authorities said. Hilton Head Island Fire Rescue said in a statement she had sustained “a leg injury consistent with lacerations typically associated with a shark bite.”

“She has lost good amount of blood so far,” a first responder said in dispatch audio obtained by CBS News.

The preteen, who has not been identified, received on-scene treatment from Shore Beach Services and Fire Rescue personnel, then was airlifted to nearby Savannah, Georgia, for medical attention. Her injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said.

It’s the second time a child has sustained a shark bite in recent days. Leah Lendel, 9, nearly lost her hand after being bitten by a shark near Boca Grande on Florida’s west coast on June 11. Witnesses at the scene said she was snorkeling when the incident occurred.

Leah was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital, where she underwent intensive surgeries to reattach her hand. She spent several days in the intensive care unit.

“I didn’t see anything. I was just snorkeling,” Leah said in a news briefing Thursday. “I went up to breathe. And then, something hard bit me and tried to take me away.”

“Then I pick up my hand and is all in blood,” Leah added. “I start screaming with my mom.”

Beachgoers said the attacks on the two young girls are an unnerving start to the summer. 

“It’s kind of nerve-racking, a little bit,” Hilton Head visitor Naomi Vereb told CBS affiliate WTOC.

Unprovoked shark attacks are rare, but they do happen, researchers say. In 2024, researchers from the International Shark Attack File, a database run by the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Florida, investigated 88 alleged shark-human interactions around the world. They confirmed 71 incidents involved shark bites. Of those attacks, 47 were unprovoked, the researchers found. Four of the unprovoked attacks were fatal.