A dentist has told of the “insane pain” and terror she felt trying to push away a shark with her hand after being bitten while snorkelling on a tropical paradise holiday.
30-year-old Ekaterina Alexandrova, from Moscow, was on a luxury holiday in the Maldives when the shark sank its teeth into her as she explored the tropical waters. She was bitten on the hand when she was snorkelling with a friend but was able to get back to her tour boat. The attack was by normally docile nurse sharks and happened after she was told the excursion she was on was “safe”.
Ekaterina said: “I got lucky – I pushed [the attacking shark] away with my left hand, and it didn’t manage to bite hard. Of course, I’ve had men tell me I’m a tasty pie and can make some, you know, bite.
“But I didn’t think I was on the lunch menu of sharks in the Maldives. So it was certainly a shock and a huge surprise to me.”
The dentist was filmed shaking from shock in a clinic afterwards as she was given stitches for the gash in her skin. She said: “Just so you understand – I was in shock and just smiling stupidly. The pain, of course, was insane. I cried later.”
Her friend Masha “turned pale and almost fainted – the boat was covered in blood,” she said. In a video she posted, Ekaterina told the story of her shark attack: “I was bitten by a shark in the Maldives.
“I feel problems ahead because a lot of stingrays arrived. The number of sharks grew three times bigger than at the start of the dive. The depth is shallow, there are a lot of sharks and there is nowhere to escape.
“The next was the moment I was bitten. I keep an eye on a predator as I snorkel. I turn my camera away from myself, and just then the shark sharply turns [at me]. All I could do was to push the shark away with my left hand.
“The camera falls out of my hands and lands on the sea bottom, the depth is about [8 to 10ft]. My camera even hits another shark on its tail. I don’t panic, because it’s not allowed to splash about in the presence of predators.”
She posted later: “I’m not exaggerating or joking. This is the reality of a holiday I ended up on. Honestly, breaking my leg didn’t hurt as much as what happened to me in [the Maldives]. Thank you to my friend who was with me the whole time. It all happened like in a bad dream.”
She claimed: “At the hospital they told me there were three fatal stingray attacks this March.” They used a scalpel on her and she said: “They cut something, stitched something. The bone and ligaments are intact – that’s great. Planning to return to work soon.”
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