Doctors on vacation help save shark attack victim – WKRG News 5

WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WKRG) – The Walton County Sheriff’s Office Beach Marine Unit continued to monitor the shoreline Saturday following two shark attacks Friday that left three people hospitalized.

The beaches on the Panhandle will be closed on Saturday.

According to the Walton County Sheriff’s Facebook page, officers found a 14-foot-long hammerhead shark east of South County Highway 395 in Santa Rosa Beach, but they said it was not an unusual sighting.

In the first shark attack on Friday, a 45-year-old woman was injured, and in the second, two 15-year-old girls.

One of the girls suffered severe injuries to her thigh and hand, while the other girl suffered minor injuries to her foot.

Ryan Forbess and Mohammad Ali are both doctors and friends who take family vacations in the 30A area every summer. Both Forbess and Ali were in the water with their children at Rosemerry Beach playing boogie board at the time of the attack.

They told News 5 that they heard sheer panic on the shore and immediately knew that there was probably a shark nearby.

“We all ran out of the water. I grabbed my son, he grabbed his daughter and as we approached the beach I looked to my left and saw the murky red water from the shark attack,” Forbess said.

When they returned to land, their medical training undoubtedly came in handy.

Other paramedics and emergency nurses, who were also on vacation, rushed to the girl’s aid.

The medical team placed tourniquets on her thigh and hand, ensuring pressure was applied to her wounds.

“When I looked down at her and saw the severity of the injury, I realized that everyone with medical knowledge had to help,” Ali said.

Forbes and Ali said they did not know the other medical staff who helped the girl, but that did not matter at the time because they all had one goal in mind: to save the 15-year-old’s life.

“We might as well have worked with them for years,” Forbes said.

I am grateful that everyone who could help was in the right place at the right time.

“It was incredible,” Forbes said. “It was just God’s will that everyone was there at the same time to help.”

Forbes and Ali spoke to the family after the girl was admitted to hospital and were told she was expected to survive.