Shark bites teen swimmer at Destin, Fla., beach

April 4 (UPI) -- A Kentucky teenager was bitten by a 5-foot-long shark near a Destin, Fla., beach, officials said.

The girl, identified only as a 17-year-old from Louisville and visiting Florida with her high school softball team, was hospitalized Sunday after she was carried from the Gulf of Mexico waters by friends.

"I stood up and saw a young lady coming out of the ocean being supported by two of her friends," said Francis Thelen, who was on the Destin beach. "Then I looked down, and you could see blood coming from her thigh. She was bleeding pretty good. She was lucky it didn't get her femoral artery, because that could have been really serious."

She was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital. The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office reported she sustained puncture wounds to her right leg, and scrapes to her left leg. It added that the wound required at least 80 stitches.

The Florida Museum of Natural History, which documents shark attacks around the world, said Sunday's incident was only the fourth shark attack off Okoloosa County beaches since 1882, and the first since 2014.