Tourist gets bitten by a shark while swimming

yinka ogunlami

December 28, 2015 11:04 PM

Tourist, Cristina Ojeda-Thies got bitten by a shark while swimming off the popular winter holiday destination of Gran Canaria.

___4503626___https:______static.pulse.com.gh___webservice___escenic___binary___4503626___2015___12___28___23___Shark-bite

Tourist, Cristina Ojeda-Thies got bitten by a shark while swimming off the popular winter holiday destination of Gran Canaria.

She tweeted a photograph of the tooth-marks scarring her arm after she treated in a hospital. She wrote: "Today I've had a face to face meeting with a shark, things that happen when you swim in the Canaries in December."

Ms Ojeda-Thies told a local newspaper: "I noticed something pulling at my left arm but I didn’t pay any attention because it felt like a dog biting you when it’s playing.

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"I returned to the shoreline swimming crawl and I felt another pull again, more intense this time. Half a second later I felt something grabbing hold of me, I turned round and I saw it pulling at me. It was a fish. I hit it with my right hand and I saw the shark’s fins as it swam off."

"Everything happened very quickly, in seconds. Although it wasn’t a painful attack, I didn’t realise how serious it was till I got out of the water. As I turned round I saw it was a big greyish-brown fish and when I hit it I noticed it had hard, rough skin."

She added: "There are times when I’ve fallen off my bike or I’ve burnt myself cooking and it’s hurt me more."

Fernando Frias, President of the Canary Islands Shark Alliance which promotes shark conservation, called the incident a 'one-off'. Authorities are trying to downplay the attack because of the effect it could have on tourism.

He told Daily Mail : "I doubt something like this will happen again in the next 50 years so people shouldn't be afraid."

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