(WHDH) — A tourist swimming in the ocean during a whale-watching trip reportedly lost both of her hands and a breast when a shark bit into her chest and arms on Monday.
The UK Telegraph reports that a 35-year-old French woman was in the water off the Polynesian island of Mo’orea when a whitetip shark attacked her.
“She had lost a lot of blood, she had both hands cut off from her forearms, and her left breast torn off,” a firefighter told AFP news agency.
The woman, whose name has not been released, was flown to a hospital on the island of Tahiti, where she is reportedly in stable condition.
Some researchers have described the whitetip as “the most dangerous of all sharks.” They are known to patrol deep ocean areas and follow pods of dolphins.
Shark attacks are said to be “very rare” in Polynesia.
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