Girl, aged 14, dies after Florida shark attack

TIM DICUS was surfing when he heard the scream. He turned and saw a girl swimming as fast as she could - and another one face down in a bloody circle of water.

Mr Dicus, aged 54, paddled over to the wounded 14-year-old girl, who had been swimming on a boogie board about 100 yards offshore. “Right next to her was the shark, about to come up and attack her again,” Mr Dicus said. He put the girl on his surfboard and the shark - which appeared to be a bull shark about 8ft long - went after her hand.

“He just followed us right to the beach,” Mr Dicus said. “He was determined to finish lunch. I hate to put it that way, but that was what he was trying to do.”

The girl was bitten on the thigh, and was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, said Walton County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Donna Shank. Her name wasn’t immediately released.

Mr Dicus said he punched the shark on the nose as it tried to attack him. Two other swimmers came with a raft, which they put the girl in and towed to shore.

Jeff White, aged 49, of Atlanta, said his son was in the raft.

“He said at one point, the shark was underneath them,” Mr White said. “So they stopped paddling. Somebody distracted the shark and they brought the girl the rest of the way in.”

Mr White said his son, Chris White, 23, told his father “she probably may have already been gone before they got her to shore”.

The attack happened near the Camping on the Gulf Holiday Travel Park, about 45 miles east of Pensacola on the Florida Panhandle.

Patrick O’Neill, the campground’s general manager, refused to comment.

Authorities closed about 20 miles after the attack.