Shark Attack Victim Reunites With LI Doctors Who Treated Injuries

BAY SHORE, NY – A woman who was bitten by a shark on the Fourth of July reunited with the doctors who treated her injuries.

Lyudmila Emag, 47, of Brooklyn, was swimming with two friends in the shallow waters off Cheery Grove when a shark attacked and sank its teeth into her upper leg.

“We were about 20 yards from the shore when I felt something grab onto my thigh…it was holding onto me, I didn’t know it was a shark,” Emag said at a news conference Thursday. “We got out of the water, and I saw the blood trickling down.”

Emag screamed at the sudden pain of the shark bite. Astonishingly, she managed to get her hands inside the shark’s mouth and unclench its jaws from her body, she said.

Her two friends who were next to her during the attack helped bring the bleeding Emag back to shore, where lifeguards called park police for help.

She was taken to South Shore University Hospital and seen by emergency department doctor Nadia Baranchuk.

When she arrived at the hospital, Emag’s wounds were flushed out thoroughly with water, and an x-ray confirmed there weren’t any foreign bodies in the wounds. She was sent home with antibiotics, the hospital said.

In this case, stitches weren’t necessary because the wound was from an animal bite.

“It was multiple wounds, so a lot of abrasions and lacerations,” said Baranchuk. “The wounds were extensive, because of the size of the shark’s jaw. When we got to see her, she was not bleeding anymore, and she did not lose a lot of blood.”

Coincidently, Emag was the second shark attack victim Dr. Baranchuk saw that day.

The first victim required surgery to remove a shark tooth from his hand.

“The last shark bite that SSUH had was five years ago, so this is a fairly uncommon occurrence,” said Dr. Sanjey Gupta, MD, emergency department chair at the hospital. “For those of us that work at coastal hospitals now, shark bites are something that are always on our minds.”

Emag says once her wounds fully heal – she will probably swim in the ocean once again.

She was one out of five people who were bitten by sharks in a two-day period earlier this month.

A 49-year-old man was swimming in the ocean off Fire Island Pines at about 1:55 p.m., when his right hand was bit by a shark. The man was taken to South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore for treatment of a non-life-threatening laceration, police said.

Just minutes before, a 47-year-old man was bitten by a shark of "unknown species," at the Quogue Village Beach on Dune Road.

On Monday, a 15-year-old girl was bitten at Beach 3 at Robert Moses State Park at around 1:45 p.m., ABC7 reported.

About three miles away east off Kismet in Fire Island, a 15-year-old boy out surfing was bitten by a shark and suffered puncture wounds to his heel and toes just before 6 p.m. He was helped by a good Samaritan, and his heel and toes were not seriously injured, the outlet reported.

Around 50 sand sharks were spotted at Robert Moses, prompting its closure on Tuesday, Newsday reported.

Paige Finney, a communications specialist with Ocearch, recently told Patch that the non-profit organization's science team was "skeptical" that any of the bites and encounters in the Long Island area have been from young white sharks.

She also shared that a trip to the beach is 132 times more likely to end in drowning than it is with a shark bite.

Ocearch recommends that to stay safe in the water this season, make sure to assess water conditions, pay attention to lifeguard warnings and rip currents, be cautious of marine life, and swim in the ocean during the day, and avoid shiny jewelry and bright-colored bathing suits.