A 16-year-old teenager, Annabelle Carlson, had a terrifying encounter with a shark while on a scuba diving trip in Belize. The incident occurred when Annabelle and her siblings decided to jump off their boat into the Gulf of Honduras near Half Moon Caye. As soon as she entered the water, a shark approached her and began biting her hands. Despite her efforts to defend herself, a second shark attacked her as well.
Annabelle’s family threw a life ring to try to rescue her, but she suffered severe injuries to her leg. She described her leg as mostly bone from below the knee to the ankle. It took nearly an hour and a half for them to reach an island where she could be airlifted to a hospital in Belize City.
At the hospital, Annabelle’s leg was amputated, and she was later transferred to a hospital in Miami for further treatment. She spent a month in the hospital but remained positive throughout the ordeal. A year later, she even dressed up as a shark attack survivor for Halloween, showing resilience and strength.
Following the attack, Annabelle’s mother expressed gratitude for her daughter’s survival and praised the medical staff who helped save her. Despite the seriousness of the incident, shark attacks in Belize are infrequent, with only three unprovoked attacks recorded in the past century, making Annabelle’s case one of the most severe.
Shark attacks in Belize typically occur during recreational activities like scuba diving and spearfishing, particularly near popular dive sites such as the Blue Hole, Halfmoon Caye, and Ambergris Caye. Incidents involving provoked actions by spearfishers or bait-fishers are not included in the unprovoked attack statistics.
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