It was New York's first shark attack since 1948, 70 years ago.
An unflappable 12-year-old is smiling in her hospital bed just hours after she says a shark attacked her leg.
Lola Pollina was wading waist-deep in the surf at Atlantique, Fire Island — off the coast of New York's Long Island — Wednesday when she saw a telltale fin right next to her.
"I felt something in there and then it let go and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what has happened?’ We looked down and we saw the bite marks, the blood," she told Inside Edition.
Her mom had seen a shadow in the water before hearing her daughter's screams.
"She just felt the hit of something — the thump or touch of something, but she didn’t feel pain and it wasn’t until it hit her again and it really went for her," her mom added.
There are deep cuts on Lola's right leg from the bites.
Lola has already undergone plastic surgery to minimize her scar and is expected to make a full recovery, according to her doctors.
Minutes later, another attack occurred four miles away.
Matthew Donaldson, 13, who was boogie boarding, was also bitten on the right leg. Lifeguards actually removed a tooth from his wounds.
Shark attacks are extremely rare in the waters of the Empire State. Wednesday’s attacks would be the first shark attacks in New York since 1948. Now local agencies and volunteers are on the hunt for the beast responsible for the attack on the two kids.
Fishermen pulled a seven-foot tiger shark from the ocean not far from the sites of the attacks. Another shark was also pulled from the Atlantic Ocean. There's no proof that these sharks were the predators.
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