An American tourist lost her foot in a shark attack while snorkeling in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

A woman from Connecticut was rushed to the hospital in the small Caribbean nation after the terrifying incident that took place off the coast of Providenciales on Wednesday.

According to the Royal Turks and Caicos Police, the woman and her friend booked a private snorkeling trip with a tour charter company called Big Blue Collective. The attack happened at the Bone Yard dive site in Princess Alexandra National Park.

The aggressive shark is believed to be a Caribbean reef shark, an endangered species native to the tropical sea. The snorkeling company called the incident ‘a case of mistaken identity.’

The tourist was saved by her boat captain, who pulled her out of the water to apply a tourniquet to her leg, before then leaping back in to grab her detached foot.

‘The calm, quick and measured response from one of our captains and office team meant that the victim was extracted from the ocean and dispatched in the ambulance in 15 minutes, saving them from a potentially life-threatening situation,’ Big Blue Collective stated.

A local source told the Daily Mail that the victim was taken to Cheshire Hall Medical Centre on Providenciales, but then had to wait six hours for an emergency flight to Miami for surgery.

After getting to Miami, doctors were still unable to reattach the foot.

the victim was 22-year-old woman from Connecticut who was celebrating her recent graduation from Yale University this spring.

The source also told the Mail that the victim was an ‘impressive young woman’ and an avid marathon runner who recently completed a race in the Netherlands.

Shark attacks are relatively rare. There were only 57 unprovoked shark attacks in 2022, down slightly from a total of 73 in 2021, according to the International Shark Attack File.

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