“At first I was a little shocked that I punched the shark, slash beat it up, but it was just a natural reaction by body had,” Damiana Humphrey says.
A brave teen survived a shark attack while swimming in waist-deep water after punching the shark in the nose.
Damiana Humphrey was in the ocean when a shark bit down on her hand.
“One of my younger brothers, he screams, ‘Shark,’” Humphrey says. “I was freaking out that I was going to lose my fingers or my hand.”
The 19-year-old was on vacation with her family in Galveston, Texas. When she realized she was being attacked by a shark, she started fighting back.
The teen’s parents, Troy and Stacy Humphrey, rushed to the shore to help their daughter.
“I got to my dad and that’s when I started screaming and crying,” Damiana says.
“I could see the wound and I told Damiana not to look at it,” Troy says.
The shark severed four tendons in the teen's hand, which is now in a cast.
Experts say shark attacks are rare in Galveston and believe it was probably a blacktip shark that mistook her hand as food.
Damiana’s parents say they are proud of their brave daughter.
“Her first instinct when she got bit was to protect her brothers and sisters, to get them out of the water first,” Stacy says.
Damiana is studying nursing in college and has a summer job at her local hospital but has to postpone it until she recovers.
